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LIBRARY OF 



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INCLUDING 



Thk Philosophy of Mesmerism. The Philosophy op Charming. 

The Philosophy of Psychology. A Treatise on Mental Alchemy. 

The Science of the Soul. i Principles of Electro-Biology. 

Elements of Animal Magnetism. 



I'll Cfo0 ©dames. 



VOL. II. 

PHILOSOPHY OF CHARMING. 

MENTAL ALCHEMY. 

ELECTRO-BIOLOGY. 

ELEMENTS OF ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 



NEW YOEK: 
FOWLERS AND WELLS, PUBLISHERS, 

Clinton Hall, 131 Nassau Street. 
Boston, 142 Washington-street.] 1854. [London, No. 142 Strand. 




CHIRON FASCINATING ESCULAPIUS. B. C 928. 



Chiron the Centaur, a prince of Thessaly, has fascinated his pupil Esculapius, a 
brother prince, for the purpose of discovering a remedy to cure the foot of Hercules, 
which had been wounded by a poisoned arrow. An herb was prevised which saved 
the hero : this plant, known from the circumstance as the Centaury, (Centaur's herb,) 
gave name to a genus, one species of which is our common blue-bottle. Chiron was 
the great physician of his day, and derived his name from a Greek word, meaning 
the hand, because he performed most of his cures by manipulating. His wonderful 
skill in horsemanship has made the poets represent him as a centaur, half man, half 
horse. In after times, the medical fame of Esculapius far eclipsed that of his master. 
Chiron, and he was early invested by the people with divine honors. His mode of 
practising, called by his descendant Hippocrates, the secret means of medicine, can 
be found detailed in the work. 



FASCINATION, 



OR THE 



PHILOSOPHY OF CHARMING 



ILLUSTRATING 



THE PRINCIPLE'S OF LIFE 



IN CONNECTION WITH 



SPIRIT AND MATTER, 



BY JOHN B/NEWMAN, M. D. 

AUTHOR OF VARIOUS WORKS ON NATURAL HISTORY, *TO 



TENTH THOUSAND. 



NEW YORK: 

FOWLERS & WELLS, 131 NASSAU-STREET; 

AND 142 WASIIINGTON-STBEET, BOSTON. 

1854. 



N\ 






>\cK 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847, 
Br FOWLERS & WELLS, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court rf the Southern District of 

New York. 



STEREOTYPED BY BURNS & ^.LttfgS. 
11 STRUCK STREET. 



PREFACE. 



It is related of Epimenides, one of the sages of antiquity, that he fell 
asleep in a cave, and remained in that state some years. When he awoke, 
everything was altered around him, and he scarcely knew where he was 
During his absence he affirmed that he had familiar intercourse with spir- 
its, and obtained the gift of prophecy,, etc. He was reported able to dis- 
miss his soul from his body, and recall it at pleasure. So high was his 
reputation for sanctity, that during a plague in Attica, 596 B. C, the 
Athenians sent for him to perform a lustration ; in consequence of which 
the plague ceased. 

Some German students in the last century, wishing to raise the devil, 
carried a pan of burning charcoal into a close room, and throwing m it 
various prescribed substances, danced around it, chanting a magic formula, 
^ne of them fell dead, and the rest, upon seeing his fate, fled with diffi- 
culty ; the incantation, they thought, had evidently been too powerful 
A professor in the same university accounted for the facts by the poison- 
ous influence of fixed air (carbonic acid gas) generated by the ignited 
carbon ; and offered to produce the gas at pleasure. He was instantly 
accused from this of having intercourse with familiar spirits. 

Science has long since endorsed the professor's solution, and to doubt it 
at the present day would betray gross ignorance. Not so fortunate, how- 
ever, was Epimenides, for it is only in our own times that his claims have 
been acknowledged ; and from the want of more extended information, 
many are even now incredulous. Increasing light will induce belief, and 
it is my earnest wish that the following pages may tend to that result. 

Man, besides soul and matter, possesses an intermediate principle dis- 
tinct from and between both, called the life power : or in the words of 
Bonard, " he is an intelligence served by organs" — these organs being the 
servants of the life power, by which it operates upon the material world, 
and is in turn operated upon by it. A proper knowledge of the life power 
is a key to explain all the phenomena of fascination ; and this it is the ob 
ject of the present work to communicate. A very concise but perfectly 
lear idea of physiology is given, and on this the foundation is laid. 



VI PREFACE. 

The Delphic priestess inhaled fixed air to act on the life power in such 
a rnanner^as to cause the spiritual in the system to preponderate over 
the material, that she might the better give her responses. In some cases 
so great was the preponderance as to cause death ; the priestess sharing 
the fate of the German student (who accomplished his desire), and by the 
same means. When the wished-for change is induced, new powers or 
instincts, previously dormant, become suddenly developed ; and like the 
lower animals, who, when sick, run and devour the herb suited to their 
case, a like faculty of properly prescribing remedies is perceived — the 
spiritual world is often beheld, and its denizens sometimes give the sleep- 
wakers information of events that will shortly happen. History tells us 
that the coming of Cortez, and his conquest of their nation, had been 
told the Mexicans long before a Spaniard was ever heard of; and the 
journals of the missionaries stationed at the Pacific isles will present simi- 
lar facts. 

We can now see why the brazier was used in the incantation of the 
student, and the probability of Epimenides undergoing a change upon en- 
tering a certain cavern (likely by accident the first time) wherein fixed 
air was generated. His powers of curing disease, having intercourse with 
spirits, and predicting events, are thus explained. It should be remark- 
ed here, that none but those predisposed to the change, can experience 
it; all artificial efforts to induce it, except in such, resulting in almost 
certain insanity or death. 

Like many others in my profession, I was a bitter eiaemy to fascination 
till accidentally led to examine it : but having done so, found the phe- 
nomena it presented, though new and startling, in strict accordance with 
the laws of life. In explaining my views, I have written for the people, 
entirely dispensing with technical terms except in one or two instances. 
That their perusal may clear up in the minds of others as many obscure 
and mysterious points as they did in his own, and thus subserve the inter- 
ests of truth, is the sincere desire of the 

AUTHOR. 

296 Fifth street, New York City. 



CONTENTS. 



CONVERSATION 1. 

CHARMING 

FAGS 

Popular views on fascination — Influence of the imagination — Re- 
port of Jussieu to the French Academy — Records of the existence 
of fascination for three thousand years — Process of fascination — 
Choosing the name — Snake charming — Anecdotes — Man charming — 
Anecdotes — Rationale of fascination — Nervous vapor — Charming of 
men — Man can fascinate man — Man can fascinate the lower animals — 
The lowftr animals can fascinate man — The lower animals can fasci- 
nate one another — Young persons sleeping with old — King David — 
School-masters — Savage nations — Lower animals — Poetry, - 11-24 

CONVERSATION II. 

DISCOVERY OF FASCINATION. 

Adam acquainted with fascination — The town of Mansoul built by 
King Shaddai in the country of Universe — Its privileges, and their 
forfeiture — Locality of heaven — Material world contained in the spir- 
itual — Encampment of angels — Stephen — Elisha and his servant — 
Idolatry — Discovery of fascination after the deluge — Worship of Sa- 
tan — Heathen magi the first fascinators, and their apotheosis — Mer- 
cury and his caduceus — Priests of India — Our Saviour accused of 
stealing secrets fiom Egypt — Cases of cures — Priests of Egypt — 
Life principle — Matter governed by laws of its own — Vegetable 
kingdom, ----- - 25-38 

CONVERSATION III. 

PHYSIOLOGY. 

That <Ti?>u has two lives may be deduced from the narrative of his 
creation — Seven properties of the living principle explained — Defini- 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

tion of instinct — Illustrations — Human understanding — House of the 
soul — Modelling of bone — Anecdote — Men taller in the morning than 
at night — Two hundred and forty-eight bones, and five hundred dis- 
tinct muscles in the humar body — Caterpillars — Elephant — Embryo 
—Digestive process — Stomach and gastric juice — Liver and bile — 
Pancreas and their juice — Chyle, and its passage through the lacteals 
and mesenteric glands — Wheels of life moving on iron axles — Heart 
pumps through it two hogsheads of blood per hour — One hundred 
and forty gallons of air used per hour in respiration — Nervous sys- 
tem — Gadfly without feeling — Transmigration of the human em 
bryo, - 39-^2 

CONVERSATION IV. 

DOUBLE LIFE OF MAN. 

Nerves of animal and vegetable life — Heart insensible — Separation 
of the two lives — Anecdotes — John Hunter — Colonel Townshend — 
Wescloff — Ganglion of the understanding — Phrenology — Seat of the 
soul — Two brains — Organs of animal life double — Insanity — Sleep — 
Sight without the eye — bearing without the ear — Nervous vapor the 
fluid used in fascination — Physicians should in all cases operate, or 
superintend the operation — Six stages of fascination — First stage — 
Idiosyncrasy — Anecdotes — Danger of slighting the warnings of antip- 
athy — Second and third stages — Mr. Braid, of Manchester — Fourth, 
fifth, and sixth stages — What are small causes — Egyptian priests — 
Origen — Apollonius Tyanneus — Pythagoras — Hippocrates, - 63-79 

CONVERSATION V. 

SPIRITUAL STATES. 

Trance of William Tennant — Delirium tremens a kind of trance- 
Servant of Elisha — King Saul and the witch of Endor — Naaman and 
Elisha — Power of the Jews to cast out devils — -Solomon's knowledge 
and charms — Eleazar casts out a devil in the presence of Vespasian 
and Josephus — Sons of Sceva — Robert Cochran's method of impart- 
ing the Holy Ghost — Mormonism exposed — Pretended miracles — 
Swedenborg and his theory — Value of dead physiology — Rejection 
of the Trinity — Epistles not to be maltreated — Clairvoyance of Swe- 
denborg, and his communication with the spiritual world — Shape of 
the life power — Amputated limbs — Calvin's entrance to the spiritual 
world — Seeress of Prevorst — Remarkable boy, ... 80-95 



CONTENTS. IX 

CONVERSATION VI. 

STAGES IN DYING. 

FAQS. 

Death is the sixth stage of fascination — No pain in dying — Illus- 
trations — Dr. Adam Clarke — Account of hanging — Decomposition 
the only sure mark of death — Premature interments — Resuscitation — 
Thespesios of Soli — Methodist communion — Dr. David Nelson, and 
his Cause and Cure of Infidelity — Theories in regard to the brain — 
Materialism — Death-bed scenes — Opening of the spiritual sight — 
Difference between really dying and only thinking ourselves dying — 
Illustrative cases — The Infidel — The Christian — Different classes of 
fancies belong to different individuals according to their belief, 97-109 

CONVERSATION VII. 

OPERATION OF MEDICINE. 

Worms on the face — Purifying the blood — Constables in the 
body — Briny peaches — Self-moving porter-houses — Spontaneous com- 
bustion — Anatomy — Physiology — Pathology — Operation of medicine 
well known — Vis Medicatrix Nature — Natural history of the dor- 
mouse — Experiments upon it — Example of the conservative power 
on the human system — Medicines — Arsenic — How to discover alter- 
ations in the life power — Illustration — Active plan of treatment — 
Expectant plan of treatment — Fascination inducing disease — Expla- 
nation of the water cure — Homoeopathy — Hannehman a fascinator — 
Why is Homoeopathy patronized — Action of salt on the blood in yel- 
low fever — Transfusion of blood — Our bodies change every seven 
years — Vaccination — True church of physicians, .- - 110-125 

CONVERSATION VIII. 

PREVISION. 

Faculty of prevision — Organic prevision — Revealed prevision — 
Organic prevision shown in the lower animals — Anecdotes — Medi- 
cal practice derived from brutes — Case of Pierre Cazot — Case of Soc- 
rates — The philosopher Cazotte's famous prediction — Passages in the 
life of Joan of Arc attesting prevision — Experience of the statesman 
Heinrich Zschokke illustrative of revealed prevision — Anecdote, 126-148 



X CONTENTS. 

CONVERSATION IX. 

SOMNAMBULISM. 

PAOK. 

Philosophy of mystery — Somnambulism — Anecdotes — Girl in Dres- 
den — Source of life — Pain necessary in surgical operations — Som- 
nambulism rescues fascination from the imputations of sorcery and 
the black art —Dendy considers mesmerism true — Pixey and fairy — 
Tailor's guardian angel — Marcus — Anecdotes — Performing dreams — 
Mr. Koggenbach — Story of Professor Upham — Captain Brown — Mr. 
John Wise — Somnambulism induced by disease — Anecdotes — Som- 
nambulism induced by medicinal agents — Anecdotes — Dances of 
witches true, and nature of the ingredients thrown by them in the 
cauldron — Anecdotes — To wnshend's sleep- waking — Somnambulic 
music for the flute — Cataleptic phenomena, - 144—156 

CONVERSATION X. 

HISTORY OF FASCINATION. 

History of Fascination — St. Martin — St. Anthony — Royalty of 
France — James of England — Charles of France — Battle of Jarnac — 
Van Helmont — Valentine Greatraks — Gassner — Mesmer — Puseygar 
— Perkins' tractors — United States — Fascination a key to the various 
superstitions of the world — George Bush — Dilemma of Swedenborg 
— Directions for operating in fascination — Alarming symptoms should 
not disconcert the operator — Illustrations — The object of fascination 
curative not experimental — Newnham — Deleuze — Conclusion, 157 — 171 

APPENDIX. 

LETTER FROM REV. W. H. BEECHER, 

Attesting, by his own experience, without any previous knowl- 
edge of the subject, the reality of the influence of fascination, phe- 
nomena of prevision, clairvoyance, etc., - - . - 172 — 176 



FASCINATION 



CONVERSATION L 



CHARMING. 



Lady. My dear doctor, I can never sufficiently thank 
you for the relief you have afforded me by your treat 
ment. I had been for years on the verge of the grave, 
and without the expectation of ever being, even for one 
day, free from pain. The first time you fascinated me, 
I experienced an incredible change — my pains ceased, 
the heart beat regularly, and my appetite returned, and, 
what is better still, my improvement has been rapid 
and thorough since then. I confess this freely, as it 
will preface what I am afraid will give you some pain. 
My friends attribute my recovery to imagination, and 
seem to think I w r as not really ill, but only nervous; 
and they suppose that a sufficient degree of irritation 
would make me as bad as I was at first. 

Doctor. They mentioned, no doubt, many wonderful 
qases of the effects of imagination on the body. 

Lady. Yes, and some as strange as my own. The 
cases that had the most effect on my mind were that of 
Joe, the Scottish drover, who was persuaded to believe 
himself sick, and in consequence really became so — and 
would have died had not the joke been discovered to 
him — and that of the criminal whom the physicians 



12 IMAGINATION. 

pretended to bleed to death, and who actually died from 
the fancied loss of blood. 

Doctor. That imagination exercises a powerful in- 
fluence upon our bodies, is an undoubted fact ; but it is 
equally a fact that it has full credit for all it performs. 
Jussieu, one of the commissioners appointed to examine 
this subject by the French Academy in 1784, states, as 
the result of a series of assiduous and attentive investi- 
gations, that he had observed some facts that admitted 
of physiological explanations ; others which seemed to 
militate against animal magnetism ; a third series of 
facts which he attributed to the imagination ; and, 
lastly, those which could lead to no other conclusion 
than that of admitting a particular agent in their pro- 
duction. 

Lady. I had no idea the subject was known as far 
back as 1784; I thought it a new discovery of the 
present day. 

Doctor. We have authentic records showing its 
existence for upward of three thousand years. I have 
been examining some authorities, and, if you are suf- 
ficiently interested in the matter, will take considerable 
pleasure in submitting the result of my labors to you ; 
and also explaining the connection of fascination with 
the laws of life. 

Lady. I am very much obliged to you for the offer, 
and will hold you to your promise. To tell the truth, I 
was on the point many times of asking the same thing ; 
for I find it to be the universal opinion of every one I 
am acquainted with, that, if true, it is something allied to 
witchcraft, and if not true, the greatest humbug of the 
age ; and, despite my own experience, I often feel very 
uneasy about it. 



VARIOUS NAMES. 13 

Doctor. I do not wonder at your feelings ; but, in 
relation to its effect on the imagination, I would ask if 
you believed in fascination before I saw you ? 

Lady. I had never heard anything about it. One 
day, when you came in and found the medicine had as 
usual produced no effect, after some conversation on 
ordinary matters, you directed me to sit down and look 
attentively in your eyes, at the same time taking hold of 
my hands. In a little time a rather uneasy feeling stole 
over me, which soon became pleasant and exhilarating ; 
before long I felt sleepy, a dreamy and triumphant 
sensation succeeded, and my eyelids closed without the 
power to open them. My pains vanished, and when 
you opened my eyes, I felt better than I had done for 
years ; and to the surprise of all my acquaintances, who 
predicted a speedy relapse, my recovery has been rapid 
and permanent. 

Doctor. Well, then, your case cannot surely be 
attributed to imagination. 

Lady. I never thought it could ; but why do you 
name your new science Fascination ? Others call it 
Mesmerism, or Animal Magnetism. 

Doctor. You are mistaken in supposing it to be a 
separate science ; it is only a part of medicine. And 
besides the names you have mentioned, Mental Elec- 
tricity, Neurology, Pathetism, Sychodunamy, and many 
others, are in turn used to signify it. The forces of 
life, as I shall explain in another place, brook no inter- 
ference from those of Chemistry or Mechanics, so that 
such terms as Magnetism and Electricity are inapplicable. 
Mesmer did not discover anything new. Neurology 
treats only of the nerves. Pathetism is a term derived 
from the Greek, meaning suffering ; and Sychodunamy 
2 



14 SNAKE CHARMING. 

is another word from the same language, meaning the 
force of the soul. Now, as we have a word in our 
language already expressive of the power in the lower 
animals, I saw no necessity to add another, especially 
as Fascination is universally acknowledged. 

Lady. You surely do not mean the charming of 
snakes ? 

Doctor. You have exactly expressed my idea ; for 
the power in man and the lower animals is exerted 
through the same medium, and produces, to a certain 
extent, the same results. Do you remember any cases 
of the fascination of snakes? 

Lady. Quite a number. Professor Silliman mentions 
that in June, 1823, he crossed the Hudson at Cattskill, in 
company with a friend, and was proceeding in a car- 
riage by the river along the road, which is there very 
narrow, with the water on one side, and a steep bank, 
covered by bushes, on the other. His attention at that 
place was arrested by observing the number of small 
birds, of different species, flying across the road and 
then back again, and turning and wheeling in manifold 
gyrations, and with much chirping, yet making no 
progress from the particular place over which they 
fluttered. His own and his friend's curiosity was much 
excited, but was soon satisfied by observing a black 
snake of considerable size, partly coiled and partly erect 
from the ground, with the appearance of great anima- 
tion, his eyes brilliant, and his tongue rapidly and inces- 
santly brandishing. This reptile they perceived to be 
the cause and centre of the wild motions of the birds. 
The excitement, however, ceased as soon as the snake, 
alarmed by the approach of the carriage, retired into 
the bushes ; the birds did not escape, but, alighting upon 



SNAKE CHARMING. 15 

the neighboring branches, probably awaited the re-ap- 
pearance of their cruel tormentor and enemy. 

I have read of a man residing in Pennsylvania, who, 
returning from a ride in warm weather, espied a black- 
bird, and a large blacksnake viewing the bird. The 
latter was describing circles, gradually growing smaller, 
around the snake, and uttering cries of distress. The 
bird had almost reached the jaws of its enemy, when 
the man with his whip drove off the snake, and the bird 
changed his note to a song of joy. 

A gentleman himself told me that while travelling 
one day, by the side of a creek, he saw a ground-squir- 
rel running to and fro between the creek and a great 
tree a few yards distant. The squirrel's hair looked 
very rough, which showed he was much frightened; 
and his returns being shorter and shorter, my friend 
stood to observe the cause, and soon discovered the 
head and neck of a rattlesnake pointing directly at the 
squirrel through a hole of the great tree, which was 
hollow. The squirrel at length gave over running, and 
laid himself quietly down, with his head close to the 
snake's. The snake then opened his mouth wide, and 
took in the squirrel's head, when a cut of the whip 
across his neck caused him to draw in his head, which 
action, of course, released the squirrel, who quickly ran 
into the creek. 

Doctor. Dr. Good mentions the curious fascinating 
pow r ei the rattlesnake, in particular, has over various 
small animals, as birds, squirrels, and leverets, which, 
incapable of turning off their own eyes from those of 
the serpent-enchanter, and overpowered with terror and 
amazement, seem to struggle to get away, and yet pro- 
gressively approach him, as though urged forward or 



16 SNAKE CHARMING. 

attracted by a power superior to that of natural instinct 
till at length they enter, apparently without foreign 
force, into the serpent's mouth, which had all along been 
open to receive them, and are instantly devoured. The 
larger kinds of various snakes have undoubtedly a simi- 
lar power. Dr. Barrow, in his Travels into the interior 
of South America, asserts this to be a fact, well known 
to almost every peasant in that quarter of the world ; 
and Vaillant, in his Travels into Africa, affirms that, at 
a place called Swortland, beholding a shrike in the very 
act of fascination by a large serpent at a distance, the 
fiery eyes and open mouth of which it was gradually 
approaching, with convulsive tremblings, and the most 
piteous shrieks of distress, he shot the serpent before 
the bird had reached it ; still, however, the bird did not 
fly, and on taking it up, it was already dead, being killed 
either by fear or the fascinating influence of the ser- 
pent, although, upon measuring the ground, he found 
the space between them to be no less than three feet 
and a half. There is a case, much in point, inserted in 
one of the early volumes of the Philosophical Transac- 
tions, which states that a mouse, put by way of experi- 
ment into a cage in which a female viper was confined, 
appeared at first greatly agitated, and was afterward 
seen to draw near to the viper gradually, which con- 
tinued motionless, but with fixed eyes and distended 
mouth, and at length .entered into its jaws, and was 
devoured. 

Lady. If any of the lower animals could be fasci- 
nated by man, I should think that would be a certain 
proof, not only of the reality of the power, but that it 
did not exert its influence through the imagination. 

Doctor. Animals of ate days have been frequently 



MEN CHARMING. 17 

fascinated for purposes of experiment, and a universal 
rigidity of the muscles produced to such an extent as to 
cause them to resemble pieces of statuary, so that the 
animal could be taken up and its whole weight supported 
by one foot — and this state produced and continued at 
pleasure. Mr. Bruce, the great African traveller, dis- 
tinctly states, from minute personal observation, that all 
the blacks in the kingdom of Sennaar, whether Funge 
or Nuba, are perfectly armed by nature against the bite 
of either scorpion or viper. They take the horned ser- 
pents in their hands at all times, put them into their 
bosoms, and throw them at one another, as children do 
apples or bells ; during which sport the serpents are sel- 
dom irritated to bite, and when they do bite, no mischief 
ensues from the wound. The influence exerted upon 
them is so great that they are scarcely ever able to 
attempt any resistance, even when eaten up alive, as 
Bruce assures us he has seen them, from tail to head, 
like a carrot. He also positively affirms that they con- 
stantly sicken the moment they are laid hold of, and are 
sometimes so exhausted by this invisible power or fasci- 
nation, as to perish as effectually, though not as quickly, 
as though struck by lightning. " I constantly observed," 
says he, "that, however lively the viper was before, 
upon being seized by any of these barbarians, he seemed 
as if taken with sickness and feebleness, frequently shut 
his eyes, and never turned his mouth toward the arm of 
the person that held him." 

This power is often used by man to disarm the fury 
of the most enraged or vicious quadrupeds. This is 
peculiarly seen at times in the case of watchdogs, over 
whom some house-breakers have found out the secret of 
exercising so seductive and quieting a power as to keep 
2* 



18 MEN CHARMING, 

♦hem in a profound silence while the burglary is com 
unfitted. Lindecrantz, of Sweden, tells us that the na- 
tives of Lapland and Dalarne are in possession of this 
secret generally, insomuch that they can instantly dis- 
arm the most furious dog, and oblige him to fly from 
them, with all his usual signs of fear, such as dropping 
the tail, and becoming suddenly silent. 

Grooms are sometimes found possessed of a similar 
power over horses. Mr. Townsend gives a striking 
anecdote to this effect in his account of James Sullivan. 
The m-an — an awkward, ignorant rustic of the lowest 
class — was by profession a horse-breaker, and generally 
nicknamed the whisperer, from its being vulgarly sup- 
posed that he obtained his influence over unruly horses 
by whispering to them. The actual secret of his fasci- 
nating power, it is very likely, was unknown to himself, 
for it died with him, his son, who was in the same occu- 
pation, knowing nothing of it. It was well known to 
every one that, however unbroken or vicious a horse or 
even a mule might be when brought to him, in the short 
space of half an hour he became altogether passive 
under his influence, and was not only entirely gentle 
and tractable, but in a very considerable degree contin- 
ued so, though somewhat more submissive to himself 
than to others. There was a little mystery in his plan, 
but unquestionably no deceit. When sent for to tame an 
unruly horse, he ordered the stable-door to be shut upon 
himself and the animal alone, and not to be opened 
until a given signal. This singular intercourse usually 
lasted for about half an hour ; no bustle was heard, or 
violence seemingly had recourse to ; but when the door 
was opened, on the proper sign being given, the horse 
was always seen lying down, and the fascinator by his 



NERVOUS VAPOR. 19 

side, playing with him familiarly as a child with a 
puppy. Mr. Townsend once saw his skill tried on c a 
horse that could never be brought to stand for a smith 
to shoe him. The day after Sullivan's half-hour lecture, 
he went, not without some incredulity, to the smith's 
shop with many other curious spectators, who w T ere eye- 
witnesses of the complete success of his art. This, too, 
had been a troop horse, and it was supposed, not with- 
out reason, that after regimental discipline had failed, no 
other would be found availing. He observed the ani- 
mal seemed afraid whenever Sullivan either spoke to 
or looked at him. In common cases, the mysterious 
preparation of a private interview was not necessary, 
the animal becoming tame at once. 

Lady. Has no person ever attempted to explain this 
wonderful influence ? for the facts seem to have been 
known a considerable time. 

Doctor. Yes, though some have doubted the facts ; 
for, as Dr. Good remarks, in the marvellous it is always 
far more easy to doubt than to determine. By far the 
best explanation^ and one with which I entirely coincide, 
is that of Major A. Gordon, of South Carolina, the 
rationale of which I will enter upon after a little time. 
In a paper of his, he attributes the fascinating power 
supposed to be possessed by serpents, to a vapor which 
they secrete, and can throw around them to a certain 
distance at pleasure. He advances various facts in 
support of this opinion, and observes that the vapor 
produces a sickening and stupefying effect ; and alludes 
to a negro who, from a peculiar acuteness of smell, 
could discover a rattlesnake at a distance of two hun- 
dred feet, when in the exercise of this power, from his 
smell being effected by it, and who, on following such 



20 MEN CHARMED. 

indication, always found some animal drawn within its 
vortex, and struggling with its influence. 

Lady. Does man possess the pow T er of throwing off 
a similar vapor 1 

Doctor. Undoubtedly ; the instruments in both are 
the same, and these instruments I will take occasion to 
describe to you, and explain their mode of operation. 

Lady. I should think it possible, in that case, for 
animals, in some instances, to fascinate man. 

Doctor. We have well-attested instances of their do- 
ing so. I remember reading, some time since, of a man 
walking out in his garden, who accidentally saw a snake 
in the bushes, and, observing the eyes gleam in a pecu- 
liar manner, watched it closely, but soon found himself 
unable to draw his own eyes off. The snake, it appeared 
to him, soon began to increase immensely in size, and 
assume, in rapid succession, a mixture of brilliant colors 
He grew dizzy, and would have fallen in the direction 
of the snake, to which he felt himself irresistibly im- 
pelled, had not his wife come up, and, throwing her arms 
around him, dispelled the charm, thus saving him from 
certain destruction. There are too many of these sto- 
ries to mention a tithe of them ; so I will conclude with 
but one more that is very generally known. Two men 
in Maryland were walking together, when one found 
fault with his companion because he stopped to look at 
something by the road-side. Perceiving he did not heed 
him, he returned to draw him along, when he perceived 
the other's eyes were fixed upon a rattlesnake, which 
had its head raised and eyes glaring at him. The poor 
fellow was leaning toward the snake, and crying pite- 
ously, in a feeble tone, " He will bite me ! he will bite 
me." " Sure enough he will," said his friend, " if you 



KING DAVID. 21 

do not run off. What are you staying here for ?" Find- 
ing him dumb to all entreaties, he struck down the 
snake with a limb of a tree, and pulled his companion 
violently away. The man, whose life was thus provi- 
dentially saved, found himself very sick for some hours 
after his enchantment. 

Lady. I must express my astonishment at the new 
light in which you have presented the whole subject to 
my mind. There can possibly be no cavilling at any of 
the positions you have assumed. 

Doctor. I give you the result of my own conclu- 
sions, after considerable study, and, from what has been 
shown, I think we may prove four things : — 

First : That man can fascinate man. 

Second : That man can fascinate the lower animals. 

Third : That the lower animals can fascinate one 
another. 

Fourth : That the lower animals can fascinate man. 

Townsend remarks, that if we wish to seek for a 
general instance of the power one human being possesses 
over another, with regard to the influence of fascination, 
we have only to look at the effects produced when 
young persons sleep with old. It is recorded of the 
Psalmist, King David, that, when he became very old, 
he got a young damsel to sleep with him, that, from her 
vigorous life, he might obtain a supply to lengthen out 
his days. Some painful instances of this kind came un- 
der his own observation — one in which the future well- 
being of a person very dear to him was compromised ; 
and he was acquainted with an infirm old lady, who was 
so perfectly aware of the benefit she derived from sleep- 
ing with young persons, that, with a sort of horrid vam- 
pireism, she always obliged her maid to share the same 



22 SAVAGE MAGICIANS. 

bed with her ; thus successively destroying the health 
of several attendants. 

The celebrated German physiologist, Hufeland, has 
remarked the longevity of schoolmasters, and attributes 
it to their living so constantly amid the healthy emana- 
tions of young persons. 

It may be well to mention, in this connection, the fact 
that savage nations, generally, practice fascination. 
They rub or pat one another when fatigued, and it 
refreshes. The wife of one of the Sandwich Island 
missionaries, on a visit to this country, some years since, 
exclaimed, on returning from a long and tiresome walk, 
that had completely exhausted her strength : " If I was 
home, the native women, by patting me, would soon 
give me complete relief from this weariness, and make 
me feel as lively as ever." The rites and gestures of 
savage magicians, the medicine-men of the wilds, over 
their patients, which so much alarm travellers, are 
nothing more than fascinating passes to cure disease — a 
method, too, that very generally succeeds. 

Even among animals, it has been found that the 
young cannot be too closely associated with the old 
without suffering detriment. Young horses, standing in 
a stable beside old ones, become less healthy, and, in 
time, weak and sickly. 

Lady. And you say these wonders can all be ex- 
plained, in accordance with what is already known of 
the laws of life ? 

Doctor. With the utmost certainty. 

Lady. But do you really think it possible that I can 
ever understand them ? I am fearful that I have not 
strength enough of mind to pry into such mysteries. 

Doctor. The subject is not difficult, by any means, 



SUBJECT EASY. 23 

and a moderate degree of perseverance is only neces- 
sary to master the whole. If you like, we will spend a 
little time to-morrow in its examination, and, in the 
meanwhile, I will leave you Mrs. Abdy's lines on fasci- 
nation, which prove, in a pleasing enough manner, that 
there can be some poetry in the subject : — 



He stands before a gathered throng, strange knowledge to unfold, 
Charming the dazzled fancy like the fairy-tales of old ; 
Yet must he brook the idle jest, the cold and doubting sneer, 
He hath no beaten patn to tread, no practised course to steer. 

The wondrous science that he strives to bring to life and light, 
Is softly, faintly breaking from the misty shades of night ; 
And scoffing prejudice upbraids the pure and genial ray, 
Because it doth not burst at once to bright and beaming day. 

He tells the healing benefits that through this power arise ; 
How sweet and soothing sleep may seal the w r eary mourner's eyes 
How raging madness may be checked ; how sufferers may obtain 
The boon of deep oblivion from the keenest throbs of pain. 

Anon he dwells on loftier themes, and shows how mind may claim 
An empire independent of the still and slumbering frame. 
Can ye doubt the proofs, ye careless throng, submitted to your view 
Can ye hold them in derision, because yet untried and new ? 

Know that improvements ever wend a tardy course on earth ; 
And though Wisdom's mighty goddess gained perfection at her birth 
Her children reach by slow degrees the vigor of their prime, 
For the wisdom of this lower world requires the growth of time. 

None wish ye on the statements of a single voice to rest ; 
The marvels ye have witnessed ye are urged to prove and test ; 
Survey them in their varied forms — inquire — observe — inspect— 
Watch — meditate — compare — delay — do all things but neglect ! 

If ye bear in mind the lessons that to-day ye have been taught, 
Ye need not lack materials for intense and stirring thought ; 
And my simple lay can little aid an orator's discourse, 
So gifted with the energ* :f intellectual force. 



24 POETRY. 

But I ask ye if your cherished ones sharp anguish should endure* 
Which the stated arts of medicine had in vain essayed to cure; 
Would it not grieve ye to reflect ye might those pangs allay, 
But that, jestingly and mockingly, ye cast that means away ? 

Mistake me not — I prize not aught, however great or wise, 
If held not in subjection to the God who rules the skies ; 
To me all knowledge would be poor, all splendor would be dim 
All boons unsafe, all joys untrue, unless derived from Him. 

And if eagerly this wondrous power I witness and approve, 
It is because I know no bounds to Heaven's amazing love. 
And 1 cannot, by the pedant rules of critic caution, scan 
The depths of those exhaustless gifts His mercy pours on roaa 



CONVERSATION II. 



DISCOVERY OF FASCINATION. 



Doctor. I wish to prove, in our conversation to-day 
that Adam was perfectly aware of the power of fasci- 
nation, together with clairvoyance, and those other mys- 
teries that astonish so much the people of the present 
day. 

Lady. Why did he not communicate this knowledge 
to his descendants, so that the matter might become 
universal and undoubted ? 

Doctor. I cannot answer better than in the words 
of that veritable historian, John Bunyan, who tells us 
that King Shaddai, in the sixth day of the year one, built 
in the country of Universe a fair and delicate town, 
called Mansoul, and endowed it with corporate privi- 
leges — a town for building so curious, for situation so 
advantageous, that there was not its equal on the face 
of the whole world. Yea, it was so goodly, when first 
built, that the gods, at the setting up of it, came down 
to sing for joy. It was so mighty as to have dominion 
over all the country round about it; for all were required 
to acknowledge it for their metropolitan, and do it 
homage. It had commission and power from the king 
to demand service of all, and also subdue those who in 
any way opposed it. 

There were certain gates in Mansoul, by which access 
could be gained to the celestial country round about it, 
and communion held with the messengers who were 
3 



26 TOWN )F MANSOtJL. 

constantly coming and going from the court of Shaddai. 
The inhabitants took full advantage of all their glorious 
privileges, and conversed with the gods freely, so that, 
all the time they continued under the dominion of its 
builder, nothing but sounds of joy and praise were 
heard ; but when, as is well known, they rebelled 
againsj his government, and swore allegiance to Diabo- 
lus, his enemy, a dreadful change came over them, and, 
among the other enjoyments of which they were bereft, 
the gates were closed that opened to the celestial coun- 
try, and no communication through them, unless under 
extraordinary circumstances, ever allowed. As the 
gates became disused, they were gradually forgotten by 
the many, and, for thousands of years, all remembrance 
of them lost. 

Lady. Why, you do not surely think that heaven is 
around us, and that, if we could see through those gates, 
we would behold its glories at once ? I have always 
entertained the idea that the celestial country was an 
immense distance off, and, when we died, there was a 
long journey to travel before it could be reached. 

Doctor. That the material world is contained in the 
spiritual, admits of direct proof, and a little reflection 
will convince us at once of the fact. You know we are 
told, that the angels that encamp round about them that 
fear the Lord, do always behold the face of our Father 
which is in heaven. And w T ere our senses not holden 
until the time when we shall be caught up to meet the 
Lord in the air, we might see the cloud of witnesses 
surveying our heavenward race, and behold, as Stephen 
did when he was martyred, heaven opened, ana Jesus 
sitting at the right hand of God. 

Lady. I must confess it would please me better to 



CELESTIAL GATES. 27 

find some certain proof of this in the Bible, and also of 
some one who had seen it, that would be immediately 
convincing. 

Doctor. You will be surprised, then, by an attentive 
examination of the sixth chapter of 2 Kings. When 
Elisha' s servant perceived his master's house surround- 
ed by the warriors of the king of Syria, who evidently 
came with a hostile intent, he was extremely frightened, 
and cried, "Alas, my master ! how shall we do ?" And 
Elisha answered and said, " Fear not ; for they that be 
with us are more than they that be with them." But as 
this did not quiet him, Elisha prayed, and said, " Lord, I 
pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see." And the 
Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw ; 
and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots 
of fire round about Elisha. 

Lady. I am satisfied, but cannot help expressing my 
astonishment at the clearness of all the proofs you bring 
forward to sustain your positions. Do you suppose they 
practised fascination before the deluge ? 

Doctor. Though they might be aware of the exist^ 
ence of the celestial gates, yet that the mode of opening 
them, and also producing curative influence, was known 
before the flood, it is, of course, out of our power to 
determine ; but that it was soon manifest after that pe 
riod, is undoubted. 

Though the immediate descendants of Noah were 
aware of the being, and some of the attributes, of 
Jehovah, yet their knowledge, handed down to posterity 
only by tradition, becam? corrupt, and the invisible and 
eternal One was lost sight of in the homage paid to 
things of wood and stone ; the charge of which, involv- 
ing, as it did in their eyes, communion with superio r 



28 HEATHEN WORSHIP. 

powers, was the most important office in the nation, and 
one, too, which it was the earnest endeavor of all to 
obtain. Now, who so likely to obtain it as those who 
pretended to be especial favorites of the gods them- 
selves, proving their assertions in the most satisfactory 
manner by the cure of diseases. Accordingly, we find 
the heathen priests were the first fascinators. 

Lady. But how did they discover the mode of doing 
it? 

Doctor. An attentive examination of the subject has 
brought me to a conclusion that, most likely, will very 
much surprise you. I think the requisite knowledge was 
imparted by Satan himself, either in a direct manner, or 
by prompting the mind to a series of experiments that 
led to the discovery. He did this to increase his influ- 
ence, so that a chosen few, on whom he could depend, 
might guide the many in the ways of destruction. 
Proof of this, I think, can be found in the fact, naturally 
abhorrent to humanity — for man has been defined to be a 
religious animal — that all barbarous nations pay more 
homage to the Spirit of Evil than they do to the Spirit 
of Good. And, as a matter of course, their rites of wor- 
ship are of the most revolting and blood-thirsty descrip 
tion ; extreme licentiousness characterizing their devo 
tions, as well as suspension by hooks, etc., and the mur 
der of infants and adults. 

Lady. If fascination is a power imparted by Satan 
why is it not sinful to have recourse to it ? 

Doctor. He did not impart the power, but merely 
showed the fact of its existence. It is a gift from Jeho 
vah, and, as such, with all thankfulness, we make use of 
it to subserve his honor and glory. The Lord makes 
the wrath of man to praise him as well as the wrath of 






GODS OF INDIA. 29 

Satan, who will no doubt find it in the end, like many 
other of his projects, one of the most efficient means of 
his overthrow. 

Uniting, as the heathen magi did, the offices of priest 
and physician, as well as king, (which last office they 
afterwards voluntarily separated, though they kept it 
subordinate to their own,) and the number of known 
remedies being then very few, they were mostly com- 
pelled to rely on fascination for giving relief in sickness. 
Some of them possessed this power in so extraordina- 
ry a degree, and had their fame so widely extended, 
as to be deified after death ; having idol statues shaped 
in their likenesses, to which divine honors were paid, 
the qualities for which they were thus honored being 
symbolized by an additional number of arms. Proofs 
of this may be seen at the present day in the images of 
the gods of India ; Vichenow, Chiven, Parachiven, Ra- 
venna, g,nd many others, have four, six, and twelve 
arms, all presenting the hands open, with the palms 
inclining downwards, the fingers being in the most ap- 
proved fascinating positions of the present day. 

It is probable that the immediate application of the 
hands was reserved for special purposes, curiously- 
shaped rods of various kinds being mostly used to direct 
the influences ; thus the caduceus of Mercury, it was 
supposed, had the power of putting any one whom it 
touched to sleep ; with it he deepened the slumbers of 
Argus, after lulling him to a gentle repose by the sound 
of his lyre, preparatory to cutting off his head. That 
he sometimes dispensed with its use is evident from a 
passage in Plautus, which makes him say of Sosia : 
" What if I stroke him gently with the hand so as to put 
him to sleep ?" May no the regal sceptre have been 
3* 



30 EGYPTIAN MAGI. 

used, before the separation of priest and king, for the 
same purposes as the caduceus of Mercury, and be, 
as well as the royal touch for the cure of scrofula, the 
last remains of the former union of offices ? 

Lady. Nothing can be more probable in this view of 
the subject. 

Doctor. The magi, or wise men of India, the most 
ancient fascinators of whom profane history gives any 
account, practised mostly gestures and manipulations in 
curing disease, though they often prescribed herbs. 

Lady. Is any particular account given of their curing 
by fascination ? 

Doctor. Philostratus mentions the case of a young 
man, whom a lion had injured in the knee to such an 
extent as to keep him in constant agony, and who went 
to the magi to obtain relief. They rubbed him gently 
with their hands at intervals during a few days, when 
he returned home perfectly cured. 

Next come the priests of Egypt, who took the great 
est possible advantage of the secret, and made the 
knowledge of it the last and holiest rite of their ancient 
magic, in the initiation of candidates. So celebrated 
were they, that many persons, taking advantage of our 
Saviour's temporary residence in Egypt, professed to 
account for his miracles, by accusing him, according to 
Arnobius, of being a magician ; of making things by 
secret means ; and of stealing, from the sanctuary of the 
Egyptian priests, the names of the powerful angels, and 
their occult disciplines. 

Patients flocked to these Egyptians from all parts of 
the world. Their mode of proceeding was to previously 
prepare them by means of fasting and prayer, and then 
wrap them up in goat skins. After the process of 



CURATIVE REVELATIONS, 31 

fascination, they were left to wait for sleep and pro- 
phetic visions ; in some instances these did not occur, 
but to provide for the emergency, there was a company of 
priests who slept for them, and revealed the dreams. A 
record of each case, telling the name of the person, the 
disease and the remedy, was engraved on the temple ; 
and these inscriptions, we are told, were, for a long while, 
the sole record of practical medicine. Five of these 
have been translated, the following two of which will 
give an idea of what they were : 

The god, in a nocturnal apparition, ordered the son of 
Lucius, who was attacked with a hopeless pleurisy, to 
take from the altar some cinders, and, mixing them with 
wine, make an application to the affected side. He was 
saved ; he thanked the god, and the people wished him 
happiness. 

A blind soldier named Valerius, after consulting the 
god, received for answer : " Go in the temple, mix the 
blood of a white fowl with honey, and wash your eyes 
with it during three days." He recovered his sight, and 
thanked the god before the people. 

Lady. What does it mean when it says they waited 
for visions ? 

Doctor. I must take a rather circuitous mode of 
answering your question. We must now study a little 
physiology, and, as I will avoid all hard names, and en- 
deavor to simplify as much as possible, you will not find 
it difficult to follow me in the explanations. 

Man has three perfectly distinct elements in his com 
position — Matter, the Life Principle, and the Soul or 
Immortal part. 

Lady. I thought life resulted from the union of all 
the different organs, and that their being placed in 



32 LIFE WITHOUT SOUL. 

just such relations made the machine work harmoni 
ously. 

Doctor. That has been, and even now is, the opinion 
of a great many, but when the system is growing, and 
also in disease, some parts are always out of relation to 
the rest, and the proportion and balance thus utterly 
destroyed ; and did life only result from the union of all, 
it must cease in such cases at once to exist. The in- 
ductive and only true method of reasoning refers the 
various operations going on within the body to a com- 
mon cause, which source of action is called the life or 
vital principle. 

Lady.' But how is this cause discovered? 

Doctor. By the phenomena it presents to us ; we 
can perceive these phenomena only through the agency 
of Matter, for which purpose alone, it would seem, mat- 
ter was created. 

Lady. As matter is governed by laws of its own, it 
appears to me that, in experimenting upon it, you would 
only be finding out those laws. 

Doctor. The laws of matter, which are known as 
the chemical and mechanical forces, differ entirely from 
those manifested by it when organized. 

Lady. Still I have not a clear idea of the vital prin- 
ciple. When I would separate it from the soul and mat- 
ter, the two last continually force themselves upon my 
mind, and make the whole subject very confused. If it 
was only possible to observe the vital principle acting 
with matter alone, without the soul's interference, I 
could easily understand it. 

Doctor. Your wish can at once be gratified, by 
looking at the geranium on your window sill. Veget- 
ables have only the vital principle and matter ; but 



LIFE IN PLANTS. 33 

perhaps 1 cannot do better than refer you to an article 
on this subject prepared by myself for a literary maga- 
zine some years ago. Will you read it aloud ? 

Lady. It was remarked by a philosopher, some years 
ago, that it was scarcely possible to tell the differ- 
ence between a dog and a rose. This statement, to the 
greater number of my readers who have not reflected 
on the subject, will appear hardly probable. Anecdotes 
of the sagacity and faithfulness of dogs are known to 
all ; and I doubt not many of them in our city are pos- 
sessed of more knowledge and practical information, 
and are better members of society, than the swarms of 
idle and vicious youth who crowd our streets. How, 
then, with such facts before him, could Bonnet make 
such an assertion ? I will tell you. Our ideas of the 
intelligence of animals are derived from the proofs of 
design we see them exhibit. Having a certain end in 
view, they will choose, with the most astonishing dis- 
crimination, out of a number of means, the ones best 
adapted to their purposes, arid contrive to use these in 
such a way as to be almost uniformly successful. Nat- 
ural history is made up of facts in support of this po- 
sition. Our next inquiry will be to find out whether 
plants ever show such instances of choice and foresight ; 
and a little examination will prove that most unquestion- 
ably they do. 

Strawberries, planted on moist ground, give out no 
runners ; but, on placing them in a dry soil with water 
at some distance, we find runners travelling around un- 
til they discover it, and then remaining — a living aque- 
duct — to supply the plant. If these runners are moved 
round to the other side, they will soon regain their 
original position with unerring certainty. If you turn 



34 INSTINCT OF PLANTS. 

the under surface of a rose-leaf upward, it will, in a 
little while, commence a return movement, gently twist- 
ing, with a kiM of effort, on its peduncle, as on a sort 
of pivot. The Abbe Martin transplanted a rose-tree 
from one part of his garden to anwther, for the purpose 
of experiment. To the right of the new position, the 
soil was hard, dry, and sterile ; to the left, moist, rich, 
and tender. The roots, at first, radiated alike to the 
right and left. But he soon discovered that the roots, 
which had advanced to the right, bent backward toward 
the fertile and mellow earth, as if divining that their 
companions at the left had found better pasture. To pre- 
vent their intercepting nourishment intended for other 
plants, he dug a ditch to stop the farther advancement 
of the roots. Arrived at the ditch, they plunged per- 
pendicularly below its bottom, ran around and advanced 
anew toward the point whence they had discovered 
the rich soil. 

Instances of their foresight in guarding against ex- 
cessive heat, wind, and rain, are equally numerous. 
In France, the peasants train the carlina by their doors, 
to serve as a barometer ; its open flowers show clear 
weather — but closed, an abundance of rain. The shep- 
herd's weather-glass has the same property. If it does 
not show its face to greet the sun on his ascension, the 
sheep remain in the fold on that day. The four-o'clock 
opens its flowers regularly every afternoon at that hour, 
to show the laborer that, if he cannot afford a watch, 
nature will provide him with the means of knowing the 
hour without expense. Such examples certainly prove 
a faculty of judging according to the sense in plants. 

And now the inquirer asks, "What is the nature 
of this Drmciole, and in what does it differ from chem- 



VEGETABLE LIFE. 35 

ical affinity or attraction?" A perfect exemplification 
of this difference is given in the history of its creation. 
And God made every plant of the field before it was in 
the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew. 
Drv land and seas, bv this time, were divided, and the 
forces of the inorganic world in operation. These forces 
are called pullers-down of nature. Exposed to their 
influence, mountain and hill crumble to dust ; and it is 
owing to their agency that volcanoes and earthquakes' de- 
stroy cities and swallow up nations. This is due, proba- 
bly, to the shape of the ultimate atoms, which, fitting into 
each other in different ways, occasion perpetual change. 

But on the third day, a controlling influence, a new- 
set of powers, the builders-up of nature, appear — cre- 
ated, in kind and degree, different from matter, yet 
only manifesting their presence to us in connection 
with it. So for from allowing these atoms to unite 
according to their affinities, which would soon destroy 
nature, they exercise the most despotic sway, control- 
ing them to the last. The chemical forces are in per- 
fect subjection while life remains ; but the moment it 
departs, dust returns to dust, the work of destruction 
begins, and the body vanishes into air. 

A beautiful example of this opposition is shown by 
seeds, which are the simplest independent forms of the 
union of the life power with matter. Take two of these, 
and, having destroyed the vitality of one of them by pass- 
ing an electric spark through it, place both in warm and 
moist earth. The dead seed, surrounded by all the con- 
ditions favorable to its decomposition, is speedily resolved 
into its native elements, while the living one makes slaves 
of its enemies, rapidly sprouts up amid the surrounding 
desolation, and hangs out its flowery banners as tokens 



36 TERMINATION. 

of victory. Seeds etain life, almost any length of 
time. I noticed, this week, an account of an abundant 
harvest reaped from the growth of seeds found in an 
Egyptian mummy, over two thousand years old. 

A seed, finding itself in a warm moist place, suddenly 
becomes aware that it has work to do, and sets about it 
without delay. The seed-case bursts, a stalk and leaves 
appear above, while the root, sending off filaments, 
remains below ; at the end of each of these little fila- 
ments is a spongiole, or bundle of leech-like mouths. 
These suck from the soil whatever they require, and 
then act the part of a stomach in instantly digesting it. 
i\. series of ascending vessels, or veins, are ready to 
carry it to the leaves, to be further elaborated ; when it 
arrives there, its oxygen is given off, and a supply of 
carbonic acid, obtained from the air, is combined with 
it ; and the pure blood, or sap, is carried by the arteries 
to every part, to supply its necessities and form com- 
pounds. 

Plants are manufacturing establishments ; some make 
the essential oils — as the cinnamon, sassafras, and rose ; 
others salts — as the sorrel, oxalic acid ; the Peruvian 
\ --irk-tree, quinine ; and the willow, salacine. Many a 
dt > ^ised shrub has powers more deadly and dangerous 
than a powder magazine ; the laurel and peach . yield 
pruss ■ acid, one drop of which will destroy life ; and 
traveliv * s tell us that the atmosphere of the upas-tree is 
fatal for miles around it. 

The vital principle of each plant, being separate and 
independent in itself, explains the reason why two of 
them — the one a virulent poison, the other a table vege- 
table—will grow side by side, and draw their nourish- 
ment from the same source. It also shows the error of 



USES OF PLANTS. 37 

our modern agriculturists, who treat these living exist 
ences, endowed with a power of choice and foresight, 
as if they were tubes, imbibing whatever was placed 
near them by capillary attraction. 

Man resembles a torch, in requiring oxygen to keep 
him burning or alive ; in return for this he throws out 
carbonic acid, which to him is a virulent poison. .Now, 
what prevents this gas accumulating in the air, and des- 
troying the animal kingdom ; and from what source 
shall the supply of oxygen be derived to answer our 
continual demand? Only from the respiration of plants ; 
which we may now see not only supply us with food, 
but are absolutely necessary for our daily existence. 

When the new Custom House and Merchant's Ex- 
change were erecting, they were the daily resort of 
thousands who flocked to witness their gradual progress ; 
yet how much more wonderful is the building of a 
vegetable palace ! Unseen workmen are urging it for- 
ward with untiring industry ; column after column 
forms ; story after story rises ; staircase and hall and 
gallery are soon fixed in their positions. We think it a 
great thing to have the Croton water brought into our 
houses ; yet in every one of these little chambers, there 
are pipes to carry food and water and take away the 
residue. The vegetable house is made of the finest 
wood, is elastic, and capable of bending to the breeze ; 
and, to defend it from the rain, covered either with wa- 
ter-proof varnish, or stuccoed over with the rares por- 
celain. And all this time the spectator is not dist urbed 
by noise or dust, the greater part of the work being car- 
ried on under ground. 

When all is completed, no monarch on earth could ob- 
tain such a residence. The very paint of its walls, though 
4 



38 R0S1CIIUCIAN. 

exposed to all kinds of impurity, is of such rare quality 
that the king's stateliest robes cannot match it. " Con- 
sider the lilies of the field ; they toil not, neither do they 
spin ; yet Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like 
unto one of these." Nay, kings are even glad to obtain 
; ts essences at second hand, to perfume themselves. 

The name of the inhabitant who owns the house is 
written on a broad door-plate of surpassing beauty, so 
that we can tell one from another. Books have been 
written on the language of these door-plates or flowers, 
and it is said that angels, by their means, write myste- 
rious truths on hill and field. The poet, from the ear- 
liest ages, has held the most sweet and loving converse 
with them. But to the physician, the priest of nature, 
they speak in a higher and more exalted strain. In 
them he reads the success of his mission. By their 
means he can conquer the most obstinate diseases. 
That nothing has ever been formed for show alone, the 
truly useful will always be the truly beautiful. That 
when their uses are perfectly understood, the fond dream 
of the Rosicrucian shall not want verification : the 
bone shall continue firm and the muscle strong ; the eye 
of youth retain its lustre ; and as century after century 
passes away, the lapse of time shall but witness our 
triumph over the pullers-down of nature, and our in- 
crease in wisdom and love. These happy children of 
Flora, that have retained undimmed the influence of 
their Creator's smile, when first he pronounced his work 
good in Eden, shall receive added radiance and more 
dazzling glory as they again behold His face in the 
dawning morn of the millenium. 



HOUSE OF THE SOUL. 39 



CONVERSATION III. 



PHSYIOLOGY. 



Doctor. The body is the house of the soul : in an 
upper story, confined to an inner chamber, closely im- 
prisoned, and having no communication with the exter- 
nal world, except through the medium of the life prin- 9 
ciple, resides our immortal being. 

Lady. But there is no mention of a double life in the 
account of man's creation. Genesis ii, 7, says that the 
Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, 
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and 
man become a living soul. 

Doctor. The Hebrew word, in that passage, for life, 
is used in the plural ; so that your objection but con- 
firms the physiological view. It should read, breathed 
into his nostrils the breath of lives. 

Lady. Is the life principle immortal as well as the 
soul? 

Doctor. I believe it is, but only in consequence of 
its connection with the soul, to which it is subservient. 
It is an intermediate between spirit and matter, present- 
ing to us certain phenomena, by which we are enabled 
t: recognize its possession of seven distinct properties ^ 
these are :— 

Vital Affiniti 
Vivification. 
Mobility. 
Irritability. 



40 NSTINCT 

Instinct. 

Sympathy. 

Sensibility. 

The first five are common to all animated natuie — 
plants as well as animals ; the last two, in consequence 
of requiring a nervous system for their development, 
belong only to animals. 

Vital affinity and vivification are used in the organiza- 
tion of matter. Mobility is the power of originating 
motion, as shown in the circulation of the sap and 
shrinking of the mimosa. Irritability, or excitability, is 
the power of giving and receiving impressions — of act- 
ing upon matter, and of being, in turn, acted upon by 
it — and is one of the most important of all. The instinct- 
ive property of plants has been already mentioned ; that 
of animals needs no illustration. Sympathy and sensi- 
bility possess names sufficiently explanatory of their 
powers. 

Lady. But have not animals a separate principle of 
instinct besides a life power ? 

Doctor. They have not. Coleridge, who is the best 
authority on this subject, remarks that instinct is the 
power of selecting and adapting means to proximate 
ends; and illustrates the point by taking the stomach of 
a caterpillar, which, he observes, has the power of 
selecting the appropriate means (that is, the assimilable 
part of the vegetable congesta) to the proximate end — 
which is, the growth or reproduction of the insect's 
body. It does this by the vital power of the stomach. 

From the power of the stomach, he passes to the 
power exerted by the whole animal ; traces it, wander- 
ing from spot to spot, and plant to plant, till it finds the 
appropriate vegetable ; and again, on this chosen vege- 



INSTINCTIVE NTELLtGENCE. 41 

table, he marks it seeking out and fixing on the part of 
the plant, bark, leaf, or petal, suited to its nourishment — 
or (should the animal have assumed the butterfly form) 
to the proper place of depositing its eggs, and making 
provision for the sustenance of the little animals that 
shall emerge from them. The power, thus exhibited, of 
selecting and adapting means to proximate ends, accord- 
ing to circumstances, he considers as a higher species 
of adaptive power, and calls it Instinct. 

Then, citing anecdotes from the writings of zoolo- 
gists, he proves in the lower animals a power of select- 
ing and adapting the proper means to the proximate 
ends, according to varying circumstances ; and this yet 
higher species of adaptive power he calls Instinctive 
Intelligence. 

In addition to these, he says that he finds one other 
character common to the highest and lowest ; namely, 
that the purposes are all manifestly predetermined by 
the peculiar organization of the animals, and both actions 
and purposes are in a necessitated reference to the 
preservation and continuance of the particular animal, 
or the progeny. There is selection, but not choice ; 
volition, rather than will. 

Lady. I suppose wild men have their instinctive 
faculties best developed, and that man, in proportion as 
he becomes civilized, or under the dominion of reason, 
loses those powers. 

Doctor. You must remember that the manifestations 
of instinct depend on the peculiar organization of the 
animal. Man is not fitted to live in a wild state, for 
then he is, of all animals, the most helpless. But Cole- 
ridge speaks directly on this point, and I will give you 
his words, premising that he defines understanding as 
4*' 



i'2 UNDERSTANDING. 

the faculty that judges by the senses. He says, that if 
we suppose the adaptive power, in its highest state, 
(instinctive intelligence) to co-exist with reason, free-will, 
and self-consciousness, it instantly becomes understand- 
ing ; in other words, that understanding differs, indeed, 
from the noblest form of instinct — not in itself, 01 in its 
own essential properties, but in consequence of its co- 
existence with far higher powers, of a diverse kind, in 
one and the same subject. Instinct, in a rational, re- 
sponsible, and self-conscious animal, is understanding. 

Having now reviewed the characters of the servants 
n the house of the soul, we will glance at their offices 
in the building, and at the building itself. In comparing 
the human frame to a self-moving house, the bones and 
muscles should be represented as beams and pillars ; the 
stomach as the kitchen ; the lungs as the ventilator, etc., 
etc. The house must be furnished with bells and wires 
to convey news, receive messages, and connect all the 
parts together into a common whole ; such offices are 
performed by the senses. 

The skeleton of the human body is composed of two 
hundred and forty-eight bones ; each of which is mod- 
elled with the utmost care for the various offices it has 
to perform ; and so close a relation does one bone bear to 
another, that an anatomist can tell from seeing one, or, 
in some cases, even a part of one, with the utmost cer- 
tainty, the general form and habits of the animal to 
which it belonged. A happy illustration of this fact 
was shown some years since in England, by Mr. Con- 
nybear, a philosopher of considerable eminence. Hav- 
ing found a few bones of an extinct species of animal, 
he set himself to work to construct the perfect skeleton. 
Little attention was paid to his performance at the time. 



BONES. 



43 



but some years afterward, a complete skeleton of that 
singular animal, the Plesiosaurius, was discovered, and 
found almost exactly to correspond with Mr. Conny- 
bear's drawing ! 



L# a, spinal column 
capped by the skull ; r 
r, ribs connected by gris- 
tle ( cartilage, ) to the 
breast bone, x ; y y, col- 
lar bones (clavicles) ; b, 
the arm bone ('humer- 
us) ; c, the elbow; d, 
the radius ; e, the ulna » 
f t the wrist joint (com- 
posed of 8 small bones, 
in two rows ) ; g t the 
finger bones (phalanges, 
19 bones) ; s s, hips or 
pelvic bones, joining w, 
the sacrum ; i, the thigh 
bone united to the trunks 
of the body by the joint 
k ; 1, the knee-pan (pa- 
tella) ; k, the knee ; m, 
the tibia, and n, the fib- 
ula, both small bones of 
the leg ; 0, ancle, com- 
posed of 7 bones ; p, 
toe bones (phalanges, 19 
bones). ] 




BONY SKELETON. 



The back bone and skull are by far the most import- 
ant among the bones ; they are the caskets in which 
are deposited the spinal marrow and brain — indeed, to 



44 BACK BONE. 

protect the nervous system from injury seems, in every 
instance, the first intention of the formation of a skele- 
ton. 

The spine, or back bone, is composed of twenty-four 
smaller bones, between the most of which is a layer of 
gristle, so that* while the indispensable condition of great 
strength is preserved, a degree of motion is allowed. 
The weight of the upper parts of the body, presses 
down this gristle during the day, thus accounting for 
the singular fact that persons are always shorter at 
night than in the morning soon after getting up. The 
loss in height in different individuals varies from half an 
inch to one or two inches. 

Lady. I know a gentleman who habitually loses m 
height from one-half to three-quarters of an inch every 
day ; and, while speaking on the subject, told me an 
anecdote relative to the practice pursued by British re- 
cruiting sergeants, who, when they found a man willing 
to enlist, not more than half an inch under the requisite 
height, made him lie in bed and fed him well for two or 
three days, by which time his gristle became well swelled 
out, and he was almost invariably sure to pass muster 
when immediately presented at the station house. 

Doctor. Every little protuberance and ridge we see on 
bones give origin or hold to muscles, which attach them- 
selves to them by means of strings or tendons. There are 
nearly five hundred distinct muscles named by anato- 
mists in the human body. This is probably underrating 
the real number, for a caterpillar has over four thousand 
muscles, and there are one thousand in the proboscis of 
an elephant. Muscles are composed of layers of cellu- 
lar tissue, the compression of which at the ends forms ten- 
dons ; while the cells in the middle are filled with fibrin. 



MUSCLES. 



45 




MUSCULAR SKELETON. 

\_f g is the sterno mastoid ; its contraction makes the head approach the 
chest ; i i i, abdominal muscles, to retain the parts in their places, assist 
respiration, etc. ; h, muscles on the chest, to move the arm toward it ; I 
extends the arm on a level with the shoulder ; k is the muscle to raise the 
fore-arm; a moves the fingers; b, the fore-leg; and c is the tailor's mus- 
cle, by which he is enabled to cross his legs.] 

The mode in which the nerves act on the mobility 
of muscles, so as to cause them to thicken or contract, 
is well shown in this cut. One part of the muscle is at- 
tached to the fore-arm, and the other to the head of the 



DIGESTION. 



arm ; as it gradually contracts and shortens on : self, the 
hand approaches the head 




[The figure represents the bones of the arm and hand, having all the 
soft parts dissected off, except one muscJe, O B i of which the function 
is to bend the arm ; O, the origin of the muscle ; B, the belly ; I, the 
insertion ; T T, the tendons; S, the shoulder-joint; E, the elbow. When 
the belly contracts, the lower extremity of the muscle I is brought nearer 
to the origin or fixed point, O, and by thus bending the arm at the elbow 
joint, raises up the weight, W, placed in the hand.] 

When the human germ or embryo is first excited to 
action, it is not as large as a pin's head, yet, even small 
as it is, the life power is in vigorous exercise ; it stations 
deputations of its properties in the proper places to form 
their own instruments of action out of the minute pulp. 
In a short time the heart and blood-vessels are formed 
to carry nutriment to every part, and the bones, mus- 
cles, and other organs appear in succession. Its first 
care is to perfect all the arrangements that are necessary 
for purposes of nutrition, which arrangements you will 
understand better in the adult than in the infant, in whom 
the parts are out of proportion. 

When food is taken in the mouth, the saliva is poured 
out from manufactories of that substance ; it mixes with 
the food, not only softening it, but also affecting on it an 
actual change, which is the first real act of digestion. 
When this fluid is deficient, its want is imperfectly sup- 



STOMACH. 



47 



plied in the other processes of assimilation. This cause 
alone would account for the dyspepsia, so prevalent 
among tobacco chewers and smokers, who wantonly 
exhaust a supply intended for other purposes than the 
filthy use to which they apply it. 

The second act is performed by the stomach, into which 
the food descends from the mouth by means of a long tube 
(cesophagus) composed of a series of muscular rings, 




THE STOMACH. 



[The stomach is capable of containing, generally, from one to two quarts 
of liquid; cases occur, however — by want on the one side, and gluttony 
on the other — in which this proportion is either much diminished or 
increased. It has two openings — the cardiac, C, (from cardium, the heart, 
it being near that organ) and the pyloric, P, from the Greek for gate- 
keeper, because it will not let anything but chyme pass it. S S, and B, 
are arteries surrounding it, to give it a good supply of blood for making 
the gastric juice.] 

which, by contracting constantly above, push it before 
them. When there, the gastric fluid is poured out on it, 
completely dissolving the whole, and changing it into 
a greyish-looking fluid called chyme. The stomach then 
contracts, closing up the opening by which it entered C, 



48 



INTESTINES. 




INTESTINAL TUBE. 



tie intestinal tube, from the mouth to its final termination, is over 
thirty feet long. After leaving the stomach, it is divided into large and 
Bmall intestines. R S S S S T, are the latter, which end at T into the 
large, which are marked U U U W ; and the termination X y is called 
the rectum, clasping which last are the strong muscle, Z Z, joining in a 
continuous circular band below. M M M, shows the stomach ; AAA, 
the liver, and its depository of bile, B, the gall-bladder.] 



VISCERA. 



40 




THE Lf73R, GALL-BLADDER, PANCREAS, AND KIDNEYS. 

[L is the liver, turned up to show its under surface ; G, the gall-blad- 
der ; P, the pancreas ; K, the kidneys, which secrete urine from the blood, 
which they empty into the bladder, B, by means of the tubes called 
ureters U ; S is the spleen, an organ at the present day considered merely 
a reservoir of blood for the stomach. The rectum, R, runs behind the 
bladder toward its terminating point ; V is the great vein carrying up the 
refuse blood to be purified ; A is the artery returning the same blood 
purified, to meet the wants of the system.] 



50 



MESENTERIC GLANDS. 



and thus forcing it out through the other orifice P. Soon 
after entering the intestines, a fluid is poured out through 
a tube. This fluid is composed of the secretion of the 
liver (bile), and another secretion from the pancreas 
(sweet breads) ; each sending a tube trom itself, the 
tubes uniting into a common duct before opening into the 
intestines. The liver has a repository for bile, called 
the gall-bladder, so that it is capable of performing its 
part in digestion at any moment. It is supposed by 
many that the juice from the pancreas merely dilutes 
the bile, but this is not very probable. This juice, when 




7» 



MESENTERIC GLANDS. 



[I I I f, portions of intestine; L, lacteals, which empty into the mesen- 
tery glands M G ; TD, thoracic duct, which conveys the elaborated fluid 
(which is, at this point, of a pale pinkish color) into the reservoir in the 
neck The spine, S. is shown in the back-ground. The mesentery 
glands exercise a very important part in digestion ; they are sometimes 
diseased in children, a fact which may be known by feeling on their bel- 
lies a number of little hard knots; in such cases, the child, if not cured-— 
no matter what the nourishment is — rapidly wastes away and dies. Dr. 
Edson, the living skeleton lately exhibited at the American museum, died 
in consequence of disease closing the thoracic duct, and thus preventing 
any access of nourishment to his system.} 



HEART. 



51 



poured on tl 3 chyme, separates it it, o two parts the 
chyle and ex 3rement. The chyle, at this stage, so much 
I'esembles milk, as to take its name from a Greek word 
meaning that article : it is instantly sucked up by mil- 
lions of little leech-like vessels, called milk carriers, 
(lacteals from lactus, milk,) which convey it to the mes- 
enteric glands to be further elaborated ; leaving them, 
it is carried to a duct and finally mixed with a reservoir 
of venous blood in the neck, from whence it enters the 
upper cavity of the right heart, is thrown into the lower 
cavity, and then taken to the lungs to receive the last 
stage of purification. 




THE HEART. 



[Man possesses two hearts, which are only placed together for the sake 
of convenience. Each heart has two cavities, an upper and a lower one ; 
the upper cavity is called an auricle, from its resembling, in shape, an 
animal's ear; the lower cavity is called a ventricle, from its shape, resem- 
bling a belly. The sudden expansion of the receiving chamber, or auricle 



52 WHEELS OF LIFE. 

of tlk.* right heart, n, produces a vacuum, which is directly filled by the 
mixture of elaborated food and veinous blood from various sources, o, p, q; 
it instantly contracts and empties this blood into the distributing chamber, 
or ventricle below ; the ventricle b contracts upon itself, and sends the 
blood into the pulmonary artery, k, to be carried to the lungs, 1 1; after 
receiving a supply of oxygen, and throwing off its carbonic acid, it 
returns to the left heart by four pulmonary veins, two of which are shown 
at m m; the left auricle, ?•, expands, produces a vacuum, becomes filled, 
contracts, and sends the blood into the left ventricle, a, which also con- 
tracts in turn, and throws the fluid into the aorta, c e, from whence it is 
carried through all parts of the system. If the time that elapses between 
the contractions of the heart be divided into four parts, three of these 
parts will represent the period of the heart's activity, and one that of its 
repose ; it thus rests one-quarter of the time, or six hours in every twenty- 
four; it does this (in common with every part of the body that has 
been exhausting its strength in working) to recruit. The artery that 
supplies the heart with blood is called the coronal, s. Each cavity of the 
heart holds two ounces ; it commonly contracts seventy times a minute, 
so that over two hogsheads of blood are pumped through our hearts 
every hour ! That the irritation of the blood does not cause the heart to 
contract, and that it possesses an inherent power of action in itself, are 
shown by the fact that, when taken out of the body (of course, a very 
short time after apparent death) and pricked, its first motion is to expand. 
The heart of a sturgeon was hung up to dry, and continued in motion so 
long that its rustling could be heard in any part of the house.] 

Arrived at the lungs, it throws out carbonic acid and 
takes in a supply of oxygen; it is then thrown into the 
upper cavity of the left heart, which contracts, sends 
it into the lower cavity, from whence the aorta receives 
it, and it then makes its rounds in the system to supply 
the wants of every part. Chemists tell us that an atom 
of pure blood is composed of eighteen different elements ; 
and also that the atoms resemble a spangle in shape, 
being thin and circular with a dot of iron in the middle, 
occasioning Dr. Good's remark that the wheels of life 
ran on iron axles. 

The arteries subdivide to an excessively minute de- 
gree, and the extreme branches terminate in little blad 
ders. Each of these litth bladders or globular cells has 



LUNGS. 



m 




THE LUNGS. 



[The windpipe, «, gives passage to the air ; it ramifies into exceedingly 
minute branches, e e e, which terminate in little cells, the masses of 
which, in three distinct lobes, are shown at c c c; this is only on the 
right side of the body ; on the left side there are but two lobes, the space 
required for the third being filled by the heart. By means of the muscles 
surrounding the chest, the lungs are alternately expanded and contracted. 
It has been found that we require one hundred and forty gallons per hour 
of pure air for respiration. It is an error that the carbonic acid given out 
from the lungs poisons the atmosphere in crowded assemblies. Such 
air has been analyzed, and found to contain as much oxygen as that in a 
forest; the ill effects are produced from pent-up human exhalations.] 



three openings, one for the artery, one for a vein, and 
one for an absorbent. When an atom of blood arrives 
in one of them, the absorbent takes from it what is re- 
quired, and works it up to suit its own purposes ; what is 
left is immediately sucked up by the vein and carried off, 



54 



ARTERIAL SYSTEM. 



to be again mixed with the elaborated food, and passed 



through the lungs. 




ARTERIAL SYSTEM. 



You will remember my mentioning, when speaking o 
the development of the embryo, the fact of deputations 
of the life power being stationed in different places to 
form their own instruments of action ; these instruments 
are called glands and their office is to secrete from the 



GLANDS. 



55 



blood the different fluids required in the system ; they 
are merely a greater or less number of bundles of little 
bladders, acting in the mode I have just mentioned, and 
endowed with specific properties to make certain sub- 
stances. Thus the liver secretes bile ; the lachrymal 
gland, tears ; and the salivary gland, spittle ; and the 
inside coat of the stomach, the gastric juice. Here is a 
cut showing the mode in which the blood-vessels ramify 




I wish you to carefully examine these cuts and the ac- 
companying descriptions, as too much minuteness in 
describing the anatomy of the organs, while explaining 
the functions, would have made the subject very difficult 
of comprehension. 

Lady. I think I understand the nutritive functions 
now, and I am glad to think that nothing but the nervous 
system remains between us and the sleepers in the 
Egyptian temples, to whom I am impatient to return ; 
but I should like to know, if anything injurious should 
enter in the channels of the circulation, how the blood 
would get rid of it. 



56 



NERVES. 



Doctor. By means of the skin, kidneys, and lungs, 
which are all excreting glands, or organs, that throw 
off offending matters. But, to pursue our subject, we 




Up Jm 




NERVOUS SYSTEM. 



must examine the nervous system. This cut of it will 
give you an idea of the ramifications of the nerves over 
the surface of the system. The nerves, like every other 



CEREBROSPINAL AXIS. 



51 



part of our system when forming, begin at the circum- 
ference, and grow toward the centre, as shown here : — 




CEREBRO-SPINAL AXIS. 



[View of the base of the brain, front portion of the spinal marrow, and 
several attached nerves : a, cerebrum (large brain) ; b, cerebellum (little 
brain, which is lower and posterior than the other) ; c, spinal marrow ; j 
medulla oblongata, the so-called bulging spinal marrow which swells out 
as it enters the brain; 1, the nerves of 6mell ; 2, nerves of sight; 3, 4, 5, 
6, nerves going to different parts of the head, of no particular interest in 
this place ; 7 is related to the nerves of hearing ; 8, 9, nerves going to the 
tongue and gullet, etc.] 



58 MOTION AND SENSATION. 

Those of the lower extremities, k k, unite in distinct 
bundles before entering the spine ; proceeding upward, 
we find nerve after nerve running into the back-bone, 
through holes bored for their reception, as n, c\ /, g, z, 
show the nerves as they come from the superior extrem- 
ities, or arms ; m, those of the neck, etc. The spinal 
canal is already filled when the nerves enter it by two 
kinds of nervous matter, the white and the grey; the 
latter is supposed to be the origin of sensation and mo- 
tion, as we invariably find, by tracing the nerves to 
their terminations, that they end in it ; and we know the 
nerves are nothing more than communicating media. 

Lady. By your course of reason, I would conclude 
that cutting the nerve of a part, before it entered 
the grey matter, would destroy all sensibility in that 
part. 

Doctor. And motion as well. All distinct masses 
of the grey matter in the body are termed ganglia ; 
the spinal cord, from its lowest part till some distance 
upward in the neck, is composed of two ganglia, sensa- 
tion and motion. With regard to cutting the nerves, 
that has been done so often, and so invariably with the 
same result, that it has become an established point in 
science, of no sensation of any kind existing, except as 
connected with a superior essence. Sensation in the 
lower animal seems even on a par with their intelli- 
gence. The gadfly, Dr. Good remarks, when it fastens 
on the hand, can be cut to pieces without its experiencing 
any apparent pain ; and the idea of Shakespeare has 
been long ago exploded — that 

-" the poor worm thou tread'st on, 



In corporeal suffering, feels a pang as great 
A» when a giant dies/' 



SPINAL CORD. 



59 



The nerve of sensation, and that of motion, are bound 
in the same sheath, till within a short distance of the 
spinal cord ; they then separate, and each enters its 
own ganglion. This cut shows a front section of the 
spinal cord and nerves : — 




SPINAL CORD AND NERVES. 



A represents the spinal cord ; B, the united nerves : 
C, the branch for motion, travelling alone ; D, that of 
sensation, which always thickens into a knot in its 
progress before entering its ganglion. 

At the upper part of the spinal marrow, we find a 
series of ganglia in pairs, one set behind the other, in 
regular order, and always found in the same relations to 
their parts ; these are the ganglia of the special senses. 
So much has observation been directed to these points, 
and so true and unvarying is nature, that, by examining 
the size of the ganglia of the animal, we can tell the 
degree of perfection the several senses have attained. 
In the eagle, we find the optic ganglion large ; in the 
hound, the olfactory ; in the rabbit, the auditory; and ii> 
all instances, the same re?u t holds. 



60 



SIDE VIEW OF THE BRAIN. 



The nerves supplying the teeth come from the thira 
branch of the five pair marked in the side view 5". 




V^.5 



SIDE VIEW OP THE BEAIN. 



(.The numerals correspond to those in the cut of the cerebro-spinal 
axis. The tree-like and branchy appearance of the cerebellum, or lesser 
brain, is well shown.] 

Many of the lower animals have only two ganglia, 
sensation and motion ; as we ascend the scale, and find 
animals possessed of special senses, so do we find the 
corresponding ganglia present ; still ascending, we find 
a new pair of ganglia, w T hich I will denominate those of 
instinctive intelligence ; for, in proportion as the 
animal exhibits marks of intelligence, do these ganglia 
increase in size, and the enlargement gives shape to the 
skull. So small is this in some animals, that they have 
a perfectly flat skull on a line with the spine. As we 
still ascend the scale, it continually enlarges, and the 



TRA EMIGRATION. 61 

skull protrudes above the spinal column, as may be seen 
in the dog and horse. 

In man, the ganglia of instinctive intelligence — or, 
according to Coleridge, of understanding — is out of all 
proportion, as regards size, to the others ; it covers 
them all, its bulging in front forming the forehead. 

Lady. One might find some excuse, in what you are 
saying, for the eastern ideas of transmigration ; a con- 
stant and perfect ascent from the very lowest germ of 
life to man would give rise to some ideas of its being 
one identical spirit — an immortal being undergoing its 
education for eternity, and, in the highest and last stage 
of material maturity, preparing for its future spiritual 
existence. 

Doctor. You will be much surprised to find that the 
brain of the child before birth is not the miniature brain 
of the man ; but, on the contrary, rises, as you have just 
guessed, from the lowest to the highest, passing through 
the grades of animated existence till it arrives at its 
present state in man, and even then continues growing, 
if cultivated, as many well-attested cases have fully 
demonstrated. The head of Napoleon, after he became 
emperor, was much larger than it was some years pre- 
vious ; a fact shown by two busts of him, now at Paris, 
taken at different periods. 

A Scotch gentleman once informed me that the eldest 
son among the aristocracy of Great Britain is titled 
from birth, and, at the death of his father, receives the 
honors of the deceased without any delay ; but that 
with the heir to the throne it was entirely different — he 
must be made a knight, a baron, an earl, etc. ; gradual 
and successive steps giving him rank — the laws, unless 
these preliminaries are observed, declaring him without 
6 



62 TUANSMC6EAT )N 

any. I have never made inquiry to know whether this 
matter was so or not, but, at any rate, it illustrates 
the stages of the lords of creation, as they style them- 
selves. 

Lady. You have destroyed transmigration, as there 
could be no occasion of letracing the steps if once gone 
over, 



CONVERSATION IV, 

DOUBLE LIFE OF MAN. 

Doctor. You will remember the care of the life 
power, when first excited, to complete all the arrange- 
ments required in nutrition. These arrangements are 
called by anatomists the organs of vegetable or organic 
life : such are the stomach, liver, heart, arteries, veins, 
kidneys, etc. Another set is required for the soul : the 
organs composing it are called the organs of animal 
life : such are the brain and voluntary muscles. 

Lady. To recall your former comparison, every thing 
that relates to keeping the house in good order, and feed- 
ing its inmates, would belong to the vegetable organs, 
while the animal are devoted to obeying the commands 
of the soul. 

Doctor. You comprehend my meaning. The appa- 
ratus in animals that pertains to nutrition, though indi- 
rectly influenced by the brain, is a system within itself, 
having its own set of nerves and ganglia. Its ganglia 
differ from those of animal life, in being of a reddish 
grey color, and lying among the soft parts ; they are 
distributed from the orbit of the eye to the lower part 
of the back bone, and have a grand centre or brain, 
called the semi-lunar ganglion, which lies behind the 
stomach. 

So sparsely are the nerves of sensation given to the 
organs of vegetable life, that, in surgical operations 
there is little or no pain felt after the skin is cut. Har 



64 SEPARATION OF LIVES. 

vey, tne demonstrator of the circulation of the blood, 
was acquainted with a young nobleman who, from dis- 
ease, had the heart so exposed that it could even be 
handled while beating : he found, to his astonishment, 
that unless his fingers came in contact with the outer 
skin, the young man was altogether unconscious of the 
heart »being touched. 

The cut on page 65 shows the ganglionic system of 
organic life. A A A A is the semi-lunar ganglion, or 
brain of the system ; the letters and numerals name the 
different ganglia from the organs they superintend, 
need not mention all these, my object being only to give . 
a general idea of the two lives, vegetable (organic) 
and animal, that belong to our system. 

Lady. Has a distinct separation ever taken place be- 
tween the two sets of organs, so that one acted while 
the other was quiescent ? 

Doctor. Yes; and quite enough to prove that the 
body and the mind can exist independently of each 
other. In concussion of the brain, sensation, thought, 
and locomotion, the functions of animal life, are entirely 
passive, while the organic continue with the usual ac- 
tivity and regularity. Sleep, which I will refer to again 
in a short time, affords a less striking instance. 

Dr. Good remarks that in cases of suspended anima- 
tion, by hanging, drowning, or catalepsy, the vital prin- 
ciple continues attached to the body after all the vital 
functions cease to act, often for half an hour, and some- 
times for hours. In the year 1769, Mr. John Hunter, 
being then forty-one years of age, of a sound constitu- 
tion, and subject to no disease except a casual fit of the 
gout, was suddenly attacked with a pain in the stomach, 
which was shortly succeeded by a total suspension of 



GANGLIONIC SYSTEM. 



65 




GANGLIONIC SYSTEM OF VEGETABLE LIFS- 



66 VOLUNTARY TRANCE. 

the action of the heart and lungs. Bv the pwer of the 
will, or rather by violent striving, he occasionally in- 
flated the lungs, but over the heart he had no control 
whatever; nor, though he was attended by four of the 
chief physicians of London from the first, could the ac- 
tion of either be restored by medicine. In about three- 
quarters of an hour, however, the vital actions began to 
return of their own accord, and in two hours he was 
perfectly recovered. Sir Everard Home observed that 
in the attack there was a suspension of the most mate- 
rial involuntary actions ; even involuntary breathing 
was stopped, while sensation, with its consequences, as 
thinking and acting, with the will, were perfect, and all 
the voluntary actions were as strong as ever. 

Dendy mentions cases in which this power of discon- 
nection was voluntary. Colonel Townsend's case was 
one of undoubted authority. That officer was able to 
suspend the action of both his heart and lungs, after 
which he became motionless, icy cold, and rigid, a glassy 
film overspreading his eyes. As there was no breathing, 
the glass held over his mouth showed no apparent mois- 
ture. Though all consciousness would pass away, yet 
the colonel could re-animate himself when he chose. 
Dr. Cleghorn relates the case of a man who could stop 
the pulse at his wrist, and reduce himself to the condi- 
tion of fainting by his will. 

Though it is only in rare cases that the will has any 
power over the nutritive organism, yet the emotions 
always exercise a very considerable influence. Every 
one has experienced the manner in which ill news spoils 
the appetite. Some cases of the effects of imagination, 
in producing fear, and thus exciting disease, we have 
already reviewed, but a few more will not be out of 



FATAL EFFECTS OF JOY. 6? 

place here. Platerus tells us of some girls playing near 
a gibbet, when one of them threw stones at a criminal 
suspended on it. Being violently struck, the body 
swung, and the girl, believing it was alive, and was de- 
scending from the gibbet, fell into violent convulsions 
and died. 

Wescloff was detained as a hostage by the Kalmucs, 
and was carried along with them in the memorable 
flight to China. His widowed mother had mourned him 
as dead, and on his sudden return, the excess of joy was 
fatal instantaneously. In the year 1544, the Jewish 
pirate, Sinamus TafFurus, was lying in a port of the Red 
Sea called Orsenoe, and was preparing for war, being 
then at variance with the Portuguese. While he was 
there, he received the unexpected intelligence that his 
son (who, in the seige of Tunis, had been made prisoner 
by Barbarossa, and by him doomed to slavery,) was 
suddenly ransomed and coming to his aid with seven 
ships well armed. He was immediately struck as if 
with apoplexy, and expired on the spot. The same 
effect was produced upon the door-keeper of Congress 
during the revolution, who, on hearing the news of a vic- 
tory won by his countrymen, fell back and expired in 
ecstacy. 

Lady. I suppose it is in the ganglion of the under- 
standing that phrenologists map the seats of the various 
properties of the mind. 

Doctor. It is : they say that if there are separate 
ganglia for the special senses, which are, after all, but 
mere modifications of general sensibility, why should 
not the same plan hold good in locating the different 
properties of the mind, which may be called the special 
senses of the understanding ; and the anatomical analo- 



68 THE BRAIN. 

gies favor this view. It had been said, before phrenol- 
ogy was known, that the faculty by which the astrono- 
mer calculated eclipses was as distinct in his mind, and 
oreserved its individuality as much, as the eye in his 
body. 

Lady. It would also account for the influence of 
habit, our constant pursuit of one object fostering the 
germ of an organ to maturity. What is the brain 
made of? 

Doctor. Its chemical constitution is principally al- 
bumen. It is formed of an immense number of arteries, 
veins, and nerves. Dr. Gall was the first to completely 
unravel its complex web, which he was enables, to do 
after hardening its substance by long-continued boiling 
in oil. 

Lady. The ancients must have been aware, as well 
as ourselves, that the height and prominence of the 
forehead were the distinguishing traits of a high degree 
of intelligence, w r hen they made the foreheads of the 
gods bulge out beyond an angle of ninety degrees. 

Doctor. They were as close observers as ourselves, 
and I am inclined to think knew almost as much. 
Nearly in the centre of the brain is a substance, com- 
monly about the size of a pea, called the pineal body, 
which Galen considered to be the seat of the soul : an 
idea that has been much ridiculed. But an attentive 
^iudy of the brain has convinced me of the truth of 
Galen's supposition ; for it has communication, by means 
of nerves, with the most important ganglia. And I 
think it reasonable to suppose the soul occupying a 
superior and independent position, overlooking and gov- 
erning the inferior powers ; and precisely such a posi- 
tion would be obtained >y a residence in the pineal 



SEAT OF THE SOUL. 69 

body ; this opinion is confirmed by the fact, that in idiots 
its means of communication are mostly cut off and 
injured. 

Lady. Can disease of the body injure the soul ? 

Doctor. Only by acting on its means of communica 
tion with the external world. We have considered the 
soul to resemble a man shut up in a dark and central 
chamber of his house ; he has servants stationed at the 
windows who tell him what they see ; an apparatus, 
also superintended by servants, is fixed on each side of 
his house, to collect sounds, which are then reported ; 
and the other senses communicate in the same manner. 
Cut off from all personal observation, he can only judge 
of the outward world from his messengers ; when these 
are true to their office, and the full growth of the brain 
is attained, man is in complete possession of all his fac- 
ulties ; if he does not become eminent then, he never 
will. For many years his messengers have been im- 
parting news ; and the time has come when they should 
work up and mentally digest all this material. Knowl- 
edge digested becomes wisdom. For this purpose, the 
avenues gradually close ; the servants become old and 
inactive ; and at last — " sans hearing, sight, and taste" — 
his communications with the external world are at 
an end ; he then moves around — a walking vegetable. 
Where nature's laws are allowed free operation, we 
never find abrupt transitions ; all rises by a gradually 
ascending scale ; and as man bids adieu to this world, 
another begins opening to his view, and the soul be- 
comes gradually accustomed to its future mode of 
existence. 

Lady. While on this subject, I would like to know if 
we have two brains ? 



70 THEOtY OF INSANITY. 

Doctor. Yes. Dr. Wigans has lately written a very 
interesting book on the subject: he argues, that as we 
have duplicates of all the organs of animal life- — such 
as the eyes, ears, etc. — and as each of these produces a 
distinct and separate impression on the orain, and were 
so made the better to render us able to judge of, ana 
correct, erroneous impressions, by comparing the effect 
of each, so the duality of the brain was intended for the 
same purpose. 

Lady. I can easily conceive why the senses shoulc 
be double, as I have seen persons who were deaf in one 
ear, and from that cause could not tell the direction 
from whence the sounds they heard proceeded. The 
experiment, cited by Abercrombie, of placing a cent on 
the edge of a table, and standing at the extreme distance 
from the table to be enabled to knock it off with ease, 
with both eyes open, by means of the finger when the 
arm is stretched out — and the certain failure attending 
'he effort when one eye is closed — would prove the ne- 
cessity of two optical organs. 

Doctor. Dr. Wigans argues, in relation to the brain, 
in a similar manner, and thus accounts very ingeniously 
for all stages of insanity. He says, that as there are 
two brains, and each receives from its nerves a distinct 
impression, both, provided they are healthy, will convey 
a correct and single report to the soul ; but if diseased, 
a very different and conflicting account reaches it, and 
acting first on one, and then on the other, produces 
insanity, more or less complete in accordance with 
the amount of disease. He makes a madman, in this 
sense, most truly, a " man beside himself" — who holds 
series of conversations with himself, which, if the sep- 
arate trains were followed out, we should find consistent 



SLEEP. 71 

in themselves. Let us ailow the seat of the soul to be 
the pineal body, and the theory of Dr. Wigans will be 
verified. 

Lady. Insanity, then, might be considered, in this 
light, as a squinting of the brains ! 

Doctor. I am glad to perceive you understand the 
^lustrations. We are now very near to our sick devo- 

ees in the Egyptian temples. But I must first make a 
few remarks on the functions of the brain. The office 
of this organ is to secrete the nervous fluid, by means of 
which the mind holds communication with, and directs, 
all the parts to which it is connected by nerves. Though 
the organs of vegetable "life have a ganglionic and ner- 
vous system of their own, still many fibres from the 
Drain and spinal marrow are sent to them, and, as in 

he case of the emotions, a powerful though indirect 
influence is exerted upon them. So long as we have 
a supply of the nervous fluid, sensation, thought, and 
locomotion (the functions of animal life), are in vigorous 
exercise ; but the moment the supply becomes deficient 
or ceases, a partial or total failure of these powers, 
depending on the quantity, is the direct result, and 
slumber succeeds, to allow more of the necessary arti- 
cle to be secreted. Whatever acts on the irritability 
of the brain, so as to change or alter the nervous se- 
cretion, acts in a corresponding manner on all the 
parts to which the changed fluid is carried by the 
nerves. 

The optic and auditory nerves are the principal ser- 
vants that wait on the mind in conveying news. The 
eye and ear resemble each other in being instruments 
for the purpose of condensing vibrations, to make them 
sufficiently intense to produce impressions on their sep- 



12 SPECIAL, SENSES DISPENSED WITH. 

arate nerves, so that messages can be carried to the 
inner chamber. 

Lady. Is light produced by vibrations, as well as 
sound 1 I have always considered it to be composed 
of particles of matter. 

Doctor. It is now proved to be merely the vibra- 
tions of an ether existing throughout all space, and 
capable of being excited by luminous bodies. 

Lady. If the optic nerve were uncovered, then we 
might do without the eye, as the vibrations of light 
would alone suffice to produce distinct images. 

Doctor. We need not have recourse to so violent a 
mode of reaching the special senses, which even then 
would require something more to insure success. The 
material in ordinary life has the preponderance ; but we 
are so formed that the spiritual in certain cases may ob- 
tain the balance of power; in proportion as the latter 
gains the ascendency do the servants become more 
active and easily impressible, till at length a point is 
reached where the apparatus for condensation can be en- 
tirely dispensed with. In this state, the vibrations of 
light that strike on the bony covering of the head will 
find the nervous matter behind it sensitive enough to 
convey impressions to the sensorium. This state is com- 
monly termed that of clairvoyance. 

Lady. Can we, in any case, ever hear sounds without 
the ear ? 

Doctor. Easily ; and it does not require any prepa- 
ration to produce that effect. Hold your watch in such 
a manner inside the mouth that nothing is touched, and 
no sound will be heard ; but by closing the teeth on it a 
loud ticking can be instantly perceived. The sounc 1 
travels through the bony structure to the auditory nerves 



NERVOUS FLUID. 73 

Lady. You certainly present proof sufficient ; it is as 
^ou say. This reminds me of a story I read some years 
ago about a merchant in Holland, who had not heard a 
sound for years, till once, while smoking, the end of his 
pipe accidentally touched a harpsichord, on which his 
daughter was playing ; to his astonishment, he was con- 
scious of the music even to the lowest tones, and he 
afterwards found that he could converse with any of his 
family through the medium of a stick supported by the 
teeth of each. 

Doctor. As nature does nothing abruptly, the ascen- 
sion of the spiritual over the material is gradual. The 
influence that produces it in fascination is the nervous 
fluid or vapor thrown off from the person operating. 
This vapor acts upon the irritability of the patient ; by 
sympathy it is transmitted to the brain; the secretion of 
that organ is changed ; and the altered nervous fluid it is 
making when sent to the various parts over which it has 
influence by the nerves, produces a series of results 
called fascinating phenomena. 

Lady. Does not the loss of this fluid injure the fasci- 
nator ? 

Doctor. In some cases it does, but there are many 
so gifted as to impart it without danger. A sensation 
of weakness ensues, which soon vanishes by a new sup- 
ply of fluid from the continued secretion of the brain. 
It is the patient that runs the greatest risk, for many per- 
sons take the office upon themselves without any ability 
to discharge its duties properly, and much trouble often 
ensues in consequence. So well is this understood, that 
in Prussia it is a criminal offence for any but physicians 
to operate. Cases have occurred, under my notice, in 
which the chest has been paralyzed ; in others, incessant 
7 



74 FIRST STAGE. 

vomiting produced, and convulsions ha^e been very 
common. Its true mode of action should be thoroughly 
understood before it is practised, and then only by the 
order and in the presence of the physician himself. 

Lady. It is divided into stages, is it not ? 

Doctor. Yes, into six, each of which are again sub- 
divided into six others, making thirty-six in all. 

The first stage seems a mere quickening of the senses ; 
it is characterized by a sensation of coolness, and a feel- 
ing of more wakefulness than before. In your own case, 
at this point, you felt, I remember, rather more uneasy 
than before I commenced ; but, in another instance, I 
was told by the patient that it was impossible to operate 
on him, so much was his mind filled with the idea of a 
necessity of going to sleep in being fascinated. I had 
doubted his susceptibility up to the moment he spoke, 
but I was then convinced I was affecting him ; and, in 
fact, he was soon insensible. The quickening of the 
senses is often shown without the agency of fascination, 
as in fever, when the slightest noise will disturb a man, 
whom, in health, the explosion of a cannon would not 
move. 

Lady. I have often felt so. Last week I had a severe 
headache, and could not endure any motion whatever 
around me, and, if I was touched by accident, was in 
absolute pain. 

Doctor. An extraordinary class of phenomena owes its 
existence to a peculiar development of this susceptibility 
I mean what is commonly called idiosyncracies, or pecu- 
liarities. I have heard Professor Revere speak of a 
lady who lived in a state of agony during the flowering 
season of plants ; the pollen floating in the atmosphere 
acted upon her irritability in such a manner as to pro- 



IDIOSYNCRASY. 75 

duce serious disease, realizing in her own experience 
Pope's idea of 

" Quick effluvia darting through the brain, 
Die of a rose in aromatic pain ;" 

and, strange to say, his lines on more refined sensibility 
and its consequences, have all been verified in this stage. 
Some men cannot endure the presence, or even proxi 
mity, of a cat ; others abhor cheese. Stepping into a 
friend's store one evening, while his clerk was absent, to 
procure some ipecac, I was requested to weigh it out 
myself, and replace the bottle on the shelf; should he do 
it, he said, it would cause him a week's illness. And 
this seems, too, an instinctive precaution, warning the 
system against unseen evil, and to disregard which 
would be dangerous. The friends of a young lady hav- 
ing tried in vain to induce her to eat cheese, enclosed a 
very small quantity in some cake, which she swallowed 
without suspicion ; an alarming and long continued ill- 
ness was the result. 

The sense of dullness, felt in the first, stage in- 
creases, and the pulse begins to rise rapidly ; the 
second stage continues but a short time, and finally 
ushers in the third, which is denoted by a dreamy and 
triumphant state of feeling. If any pain exists it now 
ceases, and the eyes close beyond the power of the will 
to open. The closure of the eyelids is, beyond doubt, 
caused by fixing the eyes so steadily on an object as to 
exhaust their nervous power. Mr. Braid, of Manches- 
ter, England, has proved this fact ; he considers that it 
will account for all the phenomena of fascination. His 
writings, however, demonstrate exhaustion in a most 
incontestible manner, but they most assuredly do nothing 
else ; it was labor lost, the facts being well known long 



76 FOURTH AND FIFTH STAGES. 

before, and never doubted. Your personal experience 
only reaches this stage. 

Lady. Is it possible to produce curative effects with- 
out reaching the third stage ? 

Doctor. The second and even first, when thus artifi- 
cially induced, will often have a beneficial influence. 
But it is a difficult matter to mark out and separate these 
stages, closure of the eye not being sufficient evidence, 
for it may not occur at all. I heard this morning of a 
man who had three teeth drawn while in one of these 
stages, and was shown the teeth. The fascinator, after 
trying several times to close his eyes without success, 
undertook to draw the teeth. Though at other times 
exceedingly sensitive, the man from whom they were 
drawn did not experience the slightest pain. 

As the fourth stage is approached, rigidity of the mus- 
cles can be induced ; the body and limbs may be fixed 
in the most strange and painful attitudes without causing 
any pain, and thus continue any length of time. Ar- 
rived at the fourth, sensation totally ceases ; and a cata- 
leptic state intervenes. Surgical operations can now be 
performed without pain, or the knowledge of the patient. 
The nervous system undergoes a remarkable change ; 
either the white matter is not capable of carrying, or the 
grey of receiving, ordinary impressions. 

The fourth is the highest state that man can induce 
by artificial means ; but some persons are so peculiarly 
constituted as to continue ascending. As they near 
the fifth, clairvoyance becomes fully manifest. Pass- 
ing the fifth, the spiritual obtains the entire predomi- 
nance, and the things of the invisible world are displayed 
with more or less clearness, in proportion as they verge 
on the sixth, which is death. 



ANGEL OF DEATH. 77 

Lady. Fascination seems to me to be a separation 
between our animal and vegetable lives. As the ties 
that bind the animal to earth are loosening, it gains 
vigor and power ; and qualities, the germ of which we 
have only been enabled faintly to discern below, ex- 
pand to their full proportion, giving rich promise of 
future capability. 

Doctor. True : and at the sixth, the separation of 
soul and body is completed, and the corruptible puts on 
incorruption, and the mortal immortality. 

Lady. Then perhaps the final separation of soul and 
body is accomplished by an angel fascinating us, and 
death's cold dart be, after all, a pass from a superior 
being. As I review the wonders I have just heard, it 
appears to me exceeding strange that so minute a cause 
as a pass in fascination should produce such astonishing 
results. 

Doctor. It is a very difficult matter to tell what small 
causes are. A little yeast, mixed with a thousand gal- 
lons of malt infusion, will make the whole ferment. A 
grain of calomel will sometimes alter the irritability of 
the whole system. Why, then, should not the most 
highly organized product in our bodies, acting, too, with 
every advantage on the most sensitive powers of anoth- 
er, produce a strange effect ? 

But to return to our patients in the goat skins ; you 
will have no trouble now, I presume, in understanding 
how it was that they had peculiar visions ; for, if my 
supposition of Satan first moving men to the discovery 
of fascination be true, nothing can be more rational than 
to suppose he also appeared, or some of his demons, 
assuming the form of Esculapius, and prescribing the 
proper remedies for diseases. Though it must have 
7* 



78 EMPEROR JULIAN. 

caused him considerable chagrin to relieve pain, and in 
any way promote human happiness, still it hacK the ad- 
vantage of increasing the faith of his devotees, and the 
number of his followers. That Satan exercised a direct 
influence on the mind of the emperor Julian is evident, 
by his deadly hatred of all that pertained to our Saviour, 
and his mad attempt to refute his prediction in relation 
to the Jewish temple. Indeed, Julian himself tells us 
that, when sick, he had often been cured by Esculapius 
pointing out the proper remedies as he slept in that god ? s 
temple. 

It would be an easy matter to fill volumes with proofs 
taken from the early history of the ancient nations ; 
proofs, too, which show, in the most convincing manner, 
that fascination was universally known and practised by 
the priests of the temples ; and that it was principally 
in this way they were enabled to retain their power and 
influence over the people. Even Origen tells us that in 
his day vast multitudes flocked to the temples of Escu- 
lapius for relief from infirmities ; and distinctly intimates 
that many remarkable cures were really performed. A 
few instances from these early times are all we can con- 
sider at present. 

Charles Radclyffe Hall gives to Apollonius Tyanneus 
the palm as a mesmerizer. He seems to have been a 
man of prodigious fascinating power, and was not only 
famous for curing diseases, and his powers of clairvoy- 
ance, but also in foretelling events. While delivering a 
public lecture at Ephesus, in the midst of a large assem- 
bly, he saw the emperor Domitian being murdered at 
Rome; and it was proved, to the satisfaction of all, that 
while the murder was performing, he described every 
circumstance attending it to the crowd, and announced 



HIPPOCRATES. 79 

the very instant in which the tyrant was slain. It is 
recorded, that so great was his nervous influence, that 
his mere presence, without uttering a single word, was 
sufficient to quell popular tumults. 

Pythagoras, also, ranks high, and not undeservedly. 
After receiving his education in Egypt, he ever after 
assumed the dress of a priest of Isis. It is related of 
him that he could give relief from any pain or disease ; 
his method consisted in passing the hands slowly over 
the body, beginning with the head, retaining them for 
some time at a little distance from the place of disease. 
In common w T ith the philosophers of his day, he veiled 
the real means of relief under the form of an incanta- 
tion ; for, while fascinating, he kept continually uttering 
magical words. His power over the lower animals 
must also have been considerable ; he is said to have 
tamed a furious bear, prevented an ox from eating 
beans, and stopped an eagle in its flight. 

Hippocrates, the father of medicine, was not himself 
entirely free from the wish to keep this means of cure 
secret. He informs us that there are two distinct 
parts in the practice of medicine — the common, such 
as young herbs, and the secret ; which latter must only 
be divulged to particular persons, who are in favor 
with superior powers. He mentions, that when the 
eyes are closed, there are times in which the soul can 
discern diseases in the body ; and also that the light we 
derive from dreams is a gieat help in our progress to 
wisdom. 



CONVERSATION V. 



SPIRITUAL STATES. 



Lady. 1 am glad to see you this morning, Doctor. 
I wanted to ask you if cases ever occurred, in our day, 
of persons seeing the spiritual world. I remember 
your remark of the celestial gates, in Mansoul, being 
closed, but they were not taken away; why, then, 
should they not be occasionally opened in the nineteenth 
century, as well as the first ? 

Doctor. A little research will convince you that 
such cases are anything but uncommon : that of William 
Tennant, a Presbyterian clergyman, of Brunswick, New 
Jersey, is well known, and of undoubted truth. 

He tells us, that while conversing with his brother on 
the state of his soul, and the fears he entertained for his 
future welfare, he found himself, in an instant, in another 
state of existence, under the direction of a superior 
Being, who ordered him to follow. He was imme- 
diately wafted along, he knew not how, till he beheld, 
at a distance, an ineffable glory, the impression of 
which he found it impossible to communicate to mortal 
man. "I immediately reflected on my happy change, 
and thought, Well, blessed be God ! I am safe at last, 
notwithstanding all my fears. I saw an innumerable 
host of happy beings, surrounding the inexpressible 
glory, in acts of adoration and joyous worship ; but I 
did not see any bodily shape or representation in the 
glorious appearance. I heard things unutterable. I 



TRANCE OF TENNANT. 81 

heard their songs and hallelujahs of thanksgiving and 
praise, with unspeakable rapture. I felt joy unutterable 
and full of glory. I then applied to my conductor, and 
requested leave to join the happy throng ; on which he 
tapped me on the shoulder, and said, ' You must return 
to earth.' This seemed like a sword through my heart. 
In an instant, I recollect to have seen my brother dis- 
puting with the doctor. The three days during which 
I had appeared lifeless, seemed to be of not more than 
ten or twenty minutes. The idea of returning to this 
world of sorrow and trouble gave me such a shock that 
I fainted repeatedly. Such was the effect on my mind 
of what I had seen and heard, that if it be possible for 
a human being to live entirely above the world and the 
things of it, for some time afterward I was that person. 
The ravishing sound of the songs and hallelujahs that I 
heard, and the very words that were uttered, were not 
out of my ears for at least three years. All the king- 
doms of the earth were, in my sight, as nothing and 
vanity ; and so great were my ideas of heavenly glory, 
that nothing which did not, in some measure, relate to 
it, could command my serious attention." 

So numerous are the cases of this kind of experience, 
that time would not be profitably occupied in consider- 
ing them ; but it will be well to dwell a moment on 
another class, of opposite character, which is not less 
frequent. 

I have often seen men who, after a prolonged indul- 
gence in every species of wickedness and blasphemy, 
have suddenly experienced a change, which gave the 
spiritual, in their system, the predominating influence. 
At such times they become aware of the presence of 
the devils, who \y acting upon the corruptions of their 



82 DELIRIUM TREMENS. 

hearts, have been successfully engaged in tempting 
them to sin. 

More heart-rending pictures than these, of agony and 
distress, are seldom or never witnessed. They have 
many times described to me the shapes and gestures of 
their tormentors, and the unholy thoughts they were 
endeavoring to instil into their minds. While speaking 
to me, they would often be seized with a frenzy of fear, 
and would close the eyelids, and cover them with their 
hands, in a vain attempt to shut out the horrible spec- 
tacle. An urgent desire to commit suicide in some 
violent manner is generally felt, and mnny find it im- 
possible to resist the temptation. Multitudes, in this 
way, are lost every year. I should remark, here, tha 
delirium tremens can be produced in many ways with- 
out the use of alcohol, as by tobacco and opium. 

We are thus enabled to trace, in a measure, the deal 
ings of heaven with our fallen race. The good man 
worn down by disease and grief, as was Tennant, is not 
allowed to despair ; his heart is cheered, and he is en- 
couraged to persevere by a view of the mansions pre- 
pared for him when his toils and troubles are ended 
below. The bad man is suddenly arrested in his career 
of wickedness, by withdrawing the veil that covers 
invisible things, and is thus shown his prompters in 
vice, and the future companions he must assoc 'ate with 
in eternity, whose torments he must share if he continues 
in the way of destruction. Happily, in some a change 
is produced. I know one to whom the warning sufficed, 
and who, at the present time, is serving under the ban- 
ners of the Prince of Peace. 

Lady. And this accounts exactly for the manner in 
which Elisha's servant, that you mentioned some time 



HEATHEN FASCINATORS. 88 

since, had his eyes opened. When Elisha prayed, 
" Lord, I pray thoe, open his eyes," he must have meant 
the spiritual ones ; for the others could discern the sur- 
rounding danger. I suppose the Saviour and his apos- 
tles and prophets performed the miracles recorded in 
Scripture by means of great endowments of fascinating 
power. 

Doctor. On the contrary, there is so broad a line 
of distinction drawn between the power of performing 
miracles, and that of fascinating, that it seems impious 
to confound the two. 

The difference between the heathen fascinators and 
the priests of Jehovah was well shown when they finally 
failed to compete with Moses in showing wonders, and 
were forced at the last to exclaim, " This is the finger 
of God." 

Passing Balaam and the prophets of Baal, who com- 
peted with Elijah, let us examine the witch of Endor. 
Artificially inducing clairvoyance, and thus holding in- 
tercourse with familiar spirits, was punishable by death 
in Israel. 

Lady. I would ask if you think the woman fascinated 
Saul? 

Doctor. By no means; the whole scene in the 19th 
chapter of Samuel has its counterpart in many a similar 
transaction of the present day. A friend of mine once 
wishing to obtain intelligence of a son who had been 
dead about three years, went to the house of a clairvoy<- 
ant. At his request I was present. The husband of 
the clairvoyant put her to sleep, and, in a little time, she 
announced the fact of her spiritual state, and soon after- 
wards found the gentleman's son. Messages were given 
and received by both parent and chile, through the me- 



84 WITCH OP ENDOR. 

dium of the clairvoyant, and my friend departed satis- 
fied : although I still felt incredulous. 

When Saul entered the woman of Endor's house, the 
latter was evidently unaware t: r his character ; and it was 
only upon a strong pledge she consented to employ her 
art. The moment she entered the clairvoyant state, 
however, she was at once aware of the rank of her 
guest, and exceedingly frightened at the consequences. 
Our translation reads as if she was scared at Samuel, but 
this was evidently not the case — witness the cry, " Why 
hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul." When, 
after he had succeeded in tranquilizing her personal 
fears, she gave the description of her spiritual visitant, 
Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and bowed himself 
to the ground. The conversation occurred through the 
woman, who, on being awakened when it was finished, 
had so little recollection of all the occurrences as to be 
totally unaware of his rank, and persuade him to eat in 
her house and recover his exhausted strength. 

The manner in which the magicians were enabled 
o foretell events is graphically shown in the 22nd 
chapter of the first book of Kings : " I saw the Lord 
sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing 
by him on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord 
said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and 
fall at Ramoth-Gilead ? And one said in this manner, 
and another said in that manner. And there came forth 
a spirit and stood before the Lord, and said, I will per- 
suade him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith ? 
And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit 
in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou 
shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth and 
do so/' 



NAAMAN AND ELISHA. 85 

Of course, then, when the king, rejecting the adv ce of 
Jehovah's minister, sought counsel of his own seers, 
they gave him the revelations of the false familiar. 
And it was not the only time evil befell man. when, " as 
the sons of God came to present themselves before the 
Lord, Satan came also amongst them." 

When Naaman came to Elisha to be healed from his 
leprosy, it was evidently with the expectation of visiting 
a more powerful fascinator than any in his own country. 
Elisha, to render him aware of his error, would not let 
him enter the house, but as soon as the horses and cha- 
riot stopped at his door, sent out a messenger, saying : 
*' Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh 
shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean." But 
Naaman was wroth, and went away and said : " Behold, 
I thought, he will surely come out to me, and stand and 
call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike Ids 
hand over the place, (in the context it reads, move his 
hand up and down over the place), and recover the 
leper." 

Lady. I have always been struck with the narrative 
myself, but your view explains the whole matter to my 
entire satisfaction, and I do not wonder at the effect it 
produced on Naaman' s mind, to cause him to renounce 
his idolatry, when he returned cured out of the river, 
after his servants persuaded him to obey the prophet's 
injunction. 

Doctor. These instances will show how totally out of 
the power of all physiological explanations were the mir- 
acles. I have before mentioned the accusation brought 
against our Saviour of having gained his wonderful 
powers by stealing magic secrets from the Egyptian 
temples. Had those who preferred the charge been as 



86 CASTING OUT DEVILS. 

open to conviction as the idolator Naaman, but little 
observation would have convinced them of its ground- 
lessness. 

Lady. Did the magicians ever pretend to cast out 
devils 1 

Doctor. Our Saviour presumes that power in com- 
mon use amongst them when he says, (Matt, xii., 27,) 
in answer to their remark of his casting out devils by 
the power of Beelzebub : "And if I by Beelzebub cast 
out devils, by whom do your children cast them out ?" 
Josephus accounts for this power in speaking of Solo- 
mon, whose sagacity and wisdom he pronounces to ex- 
ceed those of the ancients ; " insomuch that he was in 
no way inferior to the Egyptians, who are said to have 
been beyond all men in understanding ; nay, indeed it 
was very evident that their sagacity was very much 
inferior to that of the king's." "God also enabled him 
to learn that skill which expels demons, which is a use- 
ful science to men. He composed such incantations, 
also, by which distempers are alleviated ; and left be- 
hind him the manner of using exorcisms, by which they 
drive away demons, so that they never return ; and 
this method of cure is of great force until this day. 
For I have seen a certain man of my own country, 
whose name was Eleazar, releasing the people that were 
demoniacal in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, 
and his captains, and the multitude of his soldiers ; and 
the manner of the cure was this : he put a ring, that had 
a root of one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon, to 
the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he drew out 
the demon through his nostrils ; and when the man fell 
down, he adjured him to return unto him no more, mak- 
ing still mention of Solomon, and reciting the incanta- 



FASCINATION LAWFUL. 87 

tions which he composed. And when Eleazar would 
demonstrate to the spectators that he had such a power, 
he set a little way off a cup or basin full of water, and 
commanded the demon as he went out of the man to 
overturn it ; and thereby let the spectators know that 
he had left the man. And, when this was done, the skill 
and wisdom of Solomon were shown very clearly." 

Lady. After all, the practice of divination was forbid- 
den by the Jewish law, and the penalty was death. If 
it deserved so severe a punishment in those days, how 
can it be harmless in our own ? 

Doctor. In former times, the higher powers of fas- 
cination were universally abused, and made to subserve 
idolatry. Those who practised it, sedulously kept the 
people in perfect ignorance as to its real nature. Even 
when fascinating, the priests continually chanted magic 
verses, to which all the curative powers were ascribed. 
Still it appears to have been lawful to use it for benevo- 
lent purposes, as the physicians did not scruple to em- 
ploy its influence for king David. 

Lady. Casting out devils, from an account given in 
Acts xix, 13, was not always attended with safety: 
" Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took 
upon themselves to call over them which had evil spi- 
rits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you 
by Jesus, whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven 
sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which 
did so ; and the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I 
know, and Paul I know, but who are ye ? And the man 
in whom the evil spirit was, leaped on them and over* 
came them, and prevailed against them, so that they 
fled out of that house naked and wounded." 

Poctor. It was not only among the ancients that 



88 ROBERT COCHRAN. 

false religions, based on assumptions and supported by 
the pretended miracles of fascination, existed ; there is 
quite as much of this kind of imposture prevalent in 
modern times. 

Some years ago, in the town of Saco, in Maine, lived 
Robert Cochran, a man who, by pretending to a more 
than ordinary share of inspiration — working wonders, 
curing diseases by the laying on of hands, and other 
apparent miracles — created a schism in the church to 
which he belonged, drawing after him a ciowd of 
zealous followers. Upon his death, as his mantle did 
not descend to another, the society declined in numbers, 
until, finally, nothing more was heard of the schismatics 
for a long period. Some time afterward, when the sect 
had nearly been forgotten, a man — who, it was known, 
had many years before embraced Cochran's tenets, and 
had, since then, lived a life of perfect seclusion — entered 
the town on business. Passing by a lawyer's office, his 
attention was attracted by a gentleman in it fascinating 
the lawyer's son. He stood, transfixed with astonish- 
ment, before the door, until the process was completed 
and the boy asleep ; when he exclaimed aloud, " My 
God ! that is the way in which Robert Cochran used to 
give the Holy Ghost." 

The Mormons rest their claims of being the true 
church on the same basis : "Is any sick among you, let 
him send for the elders of the church, and let them pray 
over him, anointing hi\) with oil in the name of tho 
Lord, and the praye r of faith shall save the sick man." 
It is a notorious fact that the exhibition of this proof, as 
they w T ish it to be supposed, of apostolic power, has been 
the means of converting the majority of that deluded 
sect. Some three years since. I attended a Mormon 



M0RM0NISM. Sf) 

lady, who had disease of the heart, with marked suc- 
cess. One day, while operating, an elder of the faith, 
who stood by, remarked that I possessed the gift of lay- 
ing on of hands. I paid very little attention to his 
remark at the time ; but some weeks afterward, while 
visiting a friend one evening, I heard a lady explaining 
the tenets of Mormonism, and triumphantly quoting her 
own case as an illustration of the fact of their possess- 
ing apostolic power, more especially the gift of healing 
by laying on of hands ; she had frequent attacks of 
tic doloreux, and nothing except that rite of the Mormon 
church had ever sufficed, for one moment, to alleviate 
the pain. 

She was speaking with considerable animation, and 
had produced a powerful impression on the minds of 
those present, but was suddenly arrested, in the midst 
of her interesting and enthusiastic discourse, by an 
attack of that horrid disease. Finding that she was 
suffering the most exquisite agony, I rose rather hesi- 
tatingly — for I dislike scenes — and offered to relieve 
her, giving her the assurance that one of the Mormon 
elders had pronounced me in possession of the gift. The 
drowning will catch at a straw ; and my proposition 
was assented to, but evidently without any hope of 
success on the part of the sufferer. In less than a 
minute — for her system had been prepared by repeated 
fascinations — she was powerfully under my influence, 
and the relief was immeasurably greater than it had 
ever been before. After awaking the lady, I explained 
the whole matter to those present ; and it is very prob- 
able that but few of my hearers ever undertook a pil- 
grimage to the holy city of Nauvoo. 

In classifying the fanatical sects, the Swedenborgians 
8* 



90 SWEDENBORG. 

follow ihe Mormons. Their name is derived from 
Emmanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish philosopher who 
became clairvoyant in the fifty-third year of his age, in 
1743. The ascendancy of the spiritual over the mate- 
rial occurred naturally in him, probably owing to some 
defect in the constitution ; for intense study and a 
sedentary life paved the way for this change. Sweden- 
borg rejected faith— that is, would not believe any- 
thing which could not be demonstrated to the under 
standing — the faculty that judges according to the 
senses — and of course would not receive any religion, 
the doctrines of which he could not perfectly compre- 
hend. 

He ardently desired a knowledge of the soul, and the 
method he took to procure this knowledge gives a good 
illustration of his character. He tried to obtain his 
wish by confining his experiments to the dead body. 
To give his own words : " The body being her (the 
soul's) resemblance, image, and type, for this purpose I 
am resolved to study her whole anatomy, from top to 
toe." Had he but studied the laws of life in their living 
operation, he would have escaped the errors he after- 
ward blundered into. 

Lady. Such a mode of operation seems to me about 
as rational as going into a printer's office when he is 
out, and trying to form an idea of his countenance from 
an examination of the type lying around ; or inspecting 
a worn-out and cast-off steam-engine, with an idea to 
investigate the properties of steam : life in the one case, 
and vapor in the other, (the only things that can give 
the required information,) being equally absent. 

Doctor. Swedenborg, not finding his own observa- 
tions very satisfactory, calls t? his aid the observations 



MATERIALISM. 91 

of others, and professes, on this subject, to have ob- 
tained the greater part of his knowledge from books, 
and those written by men who, like himself, from the 
shape of fibre and spiracle, endeavored to diagnose the 
functions and mode of operation of each organ. His 
philosophical works are filled with such nonsense as 
this, and, as he proceeds, there is a gradual and legiti- 
mate degeneration into downright materialism of a 
modified character ; he proclaimed all life to consist in 
an influx from Deity, and that a plant, a dog, and a man, 
differ, in reality, only in the shape of their receptacles. 
You will easily understand how he gained this idea, by 
considering the brains of different animals, and consid- 
ering that of man as only a little more powerful and 
complicated than his inferiors in the animated scale. 
The study of living nature would have taught him the 
difference between the faculty, judging by sense, and 
that in which reason, free-will, and self-consciousness 
existed. Knowledge, on such a subject, gained from 
the dead body, is only such 



" as putrefaction breeds 
In fly-blown flesh, whereon the maggot feeds, 
Shines in the dark ; but, ushered into day, 
The stench remains — the lustre dies away." 

Swedenborg was a moralist. His pride dispensed, 
with a crucified Saviour, and consequently a Trinity. 
"The tiuth is, that the division of God, or of the Divine 
essence, into three persons, each of which by himself, or 
singly, is God. leads to 4 the denial of God." "It is as if 
there should be Unity and Trinity painted as a man 
with three heads upon one body, or with three bodies 
under one head, which is the form of a monster. If 
any one should enter heaven with such an idea, h? tvovld 



92 LAST JUDGMENT 

certainly be cast out headlong, although he should say 
that the head or heads signified essence, and the body or 
bodies distinct properties" 

Lady. Do you not think that a person who is really 
honest in an erroneous opinion will be saved ? 

Doctor. I do not believe that erroneous opinions of 
the doctrines of salvation can be honestly entertained. 
Our Saviour tells us: "He that doeth the will of my 
Father shall know him that sent me." He has promised 
his Spirit to guide us into all truth. Consequently, if 
we really want instruction, by the perusal of the Scrip- 
tures, and prayer, with an active, watchful life, we can 
obtain all we wish from Him who giveth wisdom to all 
men liberally, and upbraideth not. 

Following the example of many others who preceded 
him, Swedenborg allegorized the Scriptures, with the 
exception of the Epistles, which, sturdily resisting all 
such attempts, he pronounced wanting in an internal 
sense. He fortifies the dogmas of his system by direct 
consultation with, and advice from, the celestial powers. 
Finally, buoyed up beyond measure, he declared that 
the second coming of Christ was manifested in his per- 
son, and that his illumination (clairvoyance) ushered in 
the last judgment, which took place, not on earth, but 
in the spiritual world. Among other interesting mat- 
ters, we are informed, by him, that in the interior of 
Africa exists a race of spiritual believers (the term he 
applied to his disciples) ; that marriages take place in 
heaven as well as upon earth, our Saviour's words on 
that subject being figurative ; that God resembles a man 
in shape, his body forming the universe, each atom be- 
ing a solar system ; that a man consists of five spirits., 
one contained within the other, like a nest of apothe- 



UHEEN OF SWEDEN. 93 

cary's pill-boxes; man is not naturally aware of J -his, 
only he (Swedenborg) being permitted to see and 
reveal the mystery ; that there is a purgatory of thirty 
years ; that in heaven there are separate places for dif- 
ferent nations ; that, in heaven, God is seen by the 
angels, with the right eye as a sun, with the left eye as 
a moon ; that there are lower animals in the spiritual 
world ; sickness exists there, etc., etc. 

Several well-attested cases of Swedenborg's clairvoy- 
ant powers are recorded. Once, while dining with a 
friend, at a place many miles distant from his own town, 
he suddenly rose and walked out in the open air, seem- 
ingly in great agitation. At length he entered the house, 
apparently composed, and informed the company present 
that there was a great conflagration near his own resi- 
dence, and that he had been fearful for its safety ; but it 
had just been quenched within one door of his house. 
The next post brought a full and perfect confirmation of 
all he had said. 

At another time, when the queen of Sweden was jest- 
ing with Swedenborg on account of his pretensions to 
intercourse with the spiritual world, he offered to con- 
vince her of the fact by any proof she could propose. 
She told him that the late king, her husband, at the mo- 
ment of death, when she was alone with him, had whis- 
pered something important to her, and if he (Sweden- 
borg) could tell her what it was, she would be satisfied 
that he had spiritual communication. The next after- 
noon, Swedenborg called on her, mentioned that he had 
seen her husband, and had been informed by him what 
were his last words, which he then told the queen. Her 
majesty immediately swooned away, and, on recover- 
ing, expressed her astonishment ; declaring that she 



94 SPIRITUAL SHAPE. 

had no longer any doubt relative to the philosopher's 
power. 

Swedenborg taught that the spirit gives shape to the 
body, and if any member (as a leg) is lost, still the per- 
fect spiritual shape is preserved. Some persons confirm 
this view by instancing cases where pain remains in the 
toes after the limb to which th^se toes belonged has been 
cut off. 

Lady. Do such cases ever occur ? 

Doctor. Very frequently. The next day, and some- 
times for months after amputation, considerable pain is 
felt in the excised member. After the nerves have ha- 
bituated themselves to their new relations, it ceases. 
Physiologists account for this singular matter in various 
ways ; but many consider the spiritual solution the best. 
He also taught that after death, as the body remained in 
exactly the same shape, it was very difficult, from the 
preconceived notions of that state, for the deceased to 
really believe they were in another world. He seems 
to entertain much dislike to Calvin, whose entrance to 
the spiritual world he thus describes : " I have heard 
(from the angels) that when he first came into the spi- 
ritual world, he believed no otherwise than that he was 
still in the world where he was born ; and, although he 
heard from the angels who were associated with him at 
his first entrance, that he was now in their world, and 
not in his former world, he said, ? I have the same body, 
the same hands, and the like senses.' But the angels 
instructed him that he was now in a substantial body, 
and that before he was not only in the same, but in a 
material body, which invested the substantial ; and that 
the material body had been cast off and the substantial 
remained, which is man. This, a. first, he understood ; 



SEERE3S OF PREVORST. 95 

but the next day, etc" As we have spent sufficient 
time on Swedenborg, I must conclude by mentioning 
that his religion was evidently formed before his illu- 
mination, and that, clairvoyant only in a low degree, 
his philosophy every where chimes in with his revela- 
tions. 

Lady. Have others ever given to the world any 

similar experience? 

Doctor. Many have done so; of whom the seeress 
of Prevorst is an instance. In 183-, in the upper part 
of our city, a boy resided in whom this anomaly ex- 
isted. A Methodist minister lived in the same house, 
and being much interested in the boy, would often take 
him as a companion while visiting his charge. The boy 
would often cross the street to avoid the proximity of 
some one passing ; and, upon being asked the reasons 
for his conduct, would reply, "that the person was 
wicked, and had given evil spirits power over him, and 
he could see them flocking round, filling his mind with 
evil suggestions." Some time after this, two young 
ladies passed a night in attendance upon a poor woman 
who was dying ; her children, a boy and two girls, were 
in the room. Just before her death, she called the boy 
to her, and, after a little conversation, they heard her 
remark, " Is that all ?" While his mother was dying, 
the boy fell upon the floor in a convulsive fit, in which 
he continued, despite of all assistance, some ten minutes ; 
but at last rose, exclaiming, " Mother is happy, and I am 
satisfied !" and was perfectly calm afterwards. The 
ladies seized a chance, afforded by the temporary ab- 
sence of the boy, to ask the girls what all this meant ; 
they replied, that their brother could see spirits, and their 
mother, wishing to find out what some dark forms 



90 PROPHETS IN ISRAEL. 

around her bed were saying, he told her they merely 
came to carry her off, when she repjied, " Is that all ?" 
On inquiry, they found it was the same boy with whom 
the Methodist minister was acquainted. 

It is probable that the prophets in Israel, in ancient 
times, had the powers of the inner man developed. 
This change in the system seems to have been the test 
Elijah gave Elisha, whether his request would be granted. 
" And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up 
Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went 
with Elisha from Gilgal," etc. " And it came to pass, 
when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, 
\sk what I shall do for thee before I am taken from 
thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion 
of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, Thou hast asked 
a hard thing ; nevertheless, if thou see me when I am 
taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee," etc. " And it 
came to pass, as they still went on and talked, that behold 
there came a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and 
parted > them both asunder ; and Elijah went up by a 
whirlwind into heaven, and Elisha saw it? etc. 



CONVERSATION VI. 

STAGES IN DYING. 

Doctor. As we have considered the various stages 
of fascination, from a mere quickening of the senses to 
death, it will be well to consider this last a little more in 
detail; as, in doing so, we shall in a measure review the 
others. 

Lady. Does the dying person pass through the six 
stages in regular succession ? 

Doctor. I believe that is generally the case. 

Lady. But how then do you account for the extreme 
pain that is often felt in dying ? The stages of fascina- 
tion soothe pain — they do not cause it. 

Doctor. That is very true ; and when these stages 
really commence there is no longer any pain ; but up 
to the first stage the fatal disease exerts unlimited sway. 
After the fourth commences, bodily insensibility is an 
inevitable consequence ; the violent convulsions of the 
muscles do not cause suffering in the mind. Dr. Adam 
Clarke, when relating his recovering from drowning, 
stated to Dr. Lettsom that, during the period of his ap- 
parent unconsciousness, he felt a new kind of life. He 
says, " Now I aver, 1st. That, in being drowned, I felt 
no pain. 2d. That I did not, for a single moment, lose 
my consciousness. 3d. I felt indescribably happy ; and 
though dead, as to the total suspension of all the func- 
tions of life, yet I felt no pain in dying ; and I take it for 
granted, from this circumstance, those who die by 
9 






98 NO PAIN IN DYING. 

V drowning feel no pain, and that probably it is the easiest 
' of all deaths. 4th. That I felt no pain till once more 
exposed to the action of the atmospheric air ; and then 
I felt great anguish and pain in returning to life, which 
anguish, had I continued under water, I never should 
have experienced," etc. 

Dr. Moore cites Mr. Green, who, in his diary, men- 
tions a person who had been hung and cut down on a 
reprieve, who, being asked what were his sensations, 
stated that the preparations were dreadful beyond ex- 
pression, but that, on being dropped, he instantly found 
himself amidst fields and rivers of blood, which gradu- 
ally acquired a greenish tinge. Imagining that if he 
could reach a certain spot he should be easy, he seemed 
to himself to struggle forcibly to attain it, and then he 
felt no more. Schiller, when dying, was asked how he 
felt. " Calmer and calmer," he replied. Dr. Moore 
says that when the vital flame flickered, almost extin- 
guished, the heart faltering with every pulse, and every 
breath a convulsion, he said to a dying believer, who 
had not long before been talking of undying love, " Are 
you in pain ?" and the reply, with apparently the last 
breath, was, "It is delightful!" In another person, in 
whom a gradual disease had so nearly exhausted the 
physical powers that the darkness of death had already 
produced blindness, the sense of God's love was so 
overpowering, that every expression, for many hou:^, 
referred to it in rapturous words, such as, " This is life — 
this is heaven — God is life — I need not faith — I have the 
promise /" 

Lady. I would ask if there is any certain sign by 
which we may recognize death so as to prevent bury- 
ing alive ? 



TEST OF DEATH. 99 

Doctor. Only one, and that is putrefaction. Dendy 
cites several cases of premature interment, some of 
which I will mention : 

On the exhumation of the Cimetiere des Innocents at 
Paris, during the Napoleon dynasty, the skeletons were 
many of them discovered in attitudes struggling to get 
free ; indeed some, we are assured, were partly out of 
their coffins. So noted was this matter in Germany, as 
to give rise to a custom of placing a bell-rope in the 
hand of a corpse for twenty- four hours before burial. 

Miss 0. and her brother were the subjects of typhoid 
fever. She seemed to die, and her bier was placed in 
the family vault. In a week her brother died also, and 
when he was taken to the tomb, the lady was found 
sitting in her grave-clothes on the steps of the vault, 
having, after her waking from the trance, died of terror 
or exhaustion. 

A girl, after repeated faintings, was apparently dead, 
and taken as a subject into a dissecting room in Paris. 
During the night, faint groans were heard in the room ; 
but no search was made. In the morning it was appa- 
rent that the girl had attempted to disengage herself from 
the winding-sheet one leg being thrust off from the tres- 
sels, and an arm resting on an adjoining table. 

The emperor Zeno was prematurely buried ; and 
when the body was soon after casually discovered, it 
was found that he had, to satisfy acute hunger, eaten 
some flesh from off his arm. 

Lady. Have there not been cases in which recovery 
has taken place ? 

Doctor. None that bear any proportion to the pre- 
mature interments. A romantic story is told of a young 
French lady at Paris, who was condemned by her father 



100 BURYING ALIVE. 

to a hated marriage, while her heart was devoted to 
another. She fell into a trance and was buried. Under 
some strange influence her lover opened her grave, and 
she was revived and married. Dendy tells a story of 
another strange lady, who was actually the subject of 
an anatomist. On the existence of some faint signs of 
vitality, he not only restored the lady to life, but united 
himself to her in marriage. 

Bourgeois tells that a medical man, in 1833, from the 
sudden influence of grief upon the organic system, sunk 
into a cataleptic state, but his consciousness never left 
him. The lamentations of his wife, the condolence of 
friends, and the arrangements regarding his funeral, 
were all distinctly heard. Perfectly aware of- all that 
was going on around him, he was placed in the coffin, 
and carried in solemn procession to the grave. As the 
solemn words, " Earth to earth," were uttered, and the 
first clod fell upon his coffin lid, so sudden an influence 
was produced upon his organic system by terror, as to 
neutralize the effect of grief — he shrieked aloud, and was 
saved. 

A story is related of a lady who fell into a cataleptic 
state after a violent nervous disorder. It seemed to her, 
as if in a dream, that she was really dead ; yet she was 
perfectly conscious of all that happened around her in 
this dreadful state. She distinctly heard her friends 
speaking and lamenting her death at the side of her cof- 
fin : she felt them pull on her dead clothes, and lay her 
in it. This feeling produced a mental anxiety which 
was indescribable. She tried to cry, but her soul was 
without power, and could not act on her body. She 
had the contradictory feeling as if she were in her own 
body, and yet not in it at the same time. It was as 



RESUSCITATION. 101 

equally impossible for her to stretcn out her arm or to 
open her eyes as to cry, although she continually endea- 
vored to do so. The internal anguish of her mind was, 
however, at its utmost height when the funeral hymns 
were sang, and when the lid of the coffin was about to 
be nailed on. The thought that she was to be buried 
alive w T as the first one w r hich gave activity to her soul, 
and caused it to operate on her corporeal frame. 

Abbe Menon tells of a cataleptic girl, who was 
doomed to dissection ; when laid on the table, the first 
cut of the knife awoke her and she lived. Less fortu- 
nate, says Dendy, was Cardinal Somaglia, who, falling 
into syncope from intense grief, it was decided that he 
should be opened and embalmed. As the surgeon's 
knife punctured the lungs, the heart throbbed, and the 
cardinal attempted to avert the knife with his hand ; but 
the die was cast, and he died. 

A gentleman was apparently seized with apoplexy 
while at cards. A vein was opened in both arms, but 
no blood flowed. He was placed in a room with two 
watchers, who slept, alas ! too long ; for, in the morn- 
ing, the room was deluged with blood from the punc- 
tures, and his life was gone. 

Lady. Did the persons who recovered relate any 
spiritual views 1 

Doctor. In some cases ; but the most of them expe- 
rienced nothing more than a separation between organic 
and animal life, so complete, indeed, as to deprive them 
of the use of the voluntary muscles for a time. A re- 
view of these facts will justify the conclusion that inter- 
ment is wrong until putrefaction commences. 

Wonderful stories have been related in ail ages about 
the wonders of trance, or the fifth degree. Moore gives 



102 THKSPESIOS OF SOLI. 

the substance of one from Plutarch : Thespesios of Sol 
fell violently on his neck, and was supposed to be dead. 
Three days after, however, when about to be interred, 
he recovered. From this time, a wonderful change was 
apparent in his conduct ; for he had been licentious and 
prodigal, but ever after was devout, noble, and con- 
scientious. On his friends requiring the reason of this 
strange conversion, he stated that during his apparent, 
death, his rational soul had experienced marvellous 
vicissitudes ; his whole being seemed at first on a sudden 
to breathe, and to look about it on every side, as if the 
soul had been all eye, while, at the same time, he felt as 
if gliding gently along, borne upon a stream of light. 
Then he seemed to meet a spiritual person of unuttera- 
ble loveliness, who conducted him to various parts of 
the unseen world, and explained to him the mysteries 
of divine government, and show;ed him the manner in 
which wickedness meets its reward. This vision ex- 
erted all the influence of truth upon his mind, and en- 
tirely altered his character and conduct. 

The Methodist denomination afford many strange 
instances of singular experience, so w r ell known that it 
would be useless to repeat them. *We will conclude 
the degrees by a chapter from Dr. Nelson, who, in his 
Cause and Cure of Infidelity, (a work published by 
the American Tract Society, and which ought to lay on 
the shelf of every family in the land, with the Bible 
and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress; a work, too, which 
no child of mine, able to tell the letters, should ever fail 
to peruse and commit to memory,) mentions several 
cases of the opening of the spiritual eye. The unbe- 
liever, at the point of death, sees the reality of those 
things at wh'ch he formerly scoffed ; he commences the 



APPROACHING DEATH. 103 

passage of the river (a transition of the stages) with 
stoical indifference, but before reaching the other side, 
evinces the most terrible despair, and the parting spirit 
bids adieu in a wail of agony. The follower of the 
Man of Calvary approaches the brink with fear, but 
ere long, the choral music of the seraphim proves a cor- 
dial to his fainting spirit, he pants to enter the blessed 
abodes he sees opening before him, and the rapturous 
exclamation, " Lord, receive my spirit!" announces that 
he sleeps in Jesus. You are sufficiently prepared to ap- 
preciate the physiological state he describes without fur- 
ther explanation. 

OBSERVATIONS ON MAN'S DEPARTURE. 

"While attending medical lectures at Philadelphia, I heard, from the 
lady with whom I boarded, an account of certain individuals who were 
dead to all appearance, during the prevalence of the yellow fever in that 
city, and yet recovered. The fact that they saw, or fancied they saw, 
things in the world of spirits, awakened my curiosity. 

" She told me of one, with whom she was acquainted, who was so 
confident of his discoveries that he had seemingly thought of little else 
afterward, and it had then been twenty-four years. These things ap- 
peared philosophically strange to me, for the following reasons: — 

f First : Those who, from bleeding or from any other cause, reach a 
state of syncope, or the ordinary fainting condition, think not at all, or are 
unable to remember any mental action. When they recover, it appears 
either that the mind was suspended, or they were unable to recollect its 
operations. There are those who believe on either side of this question. 
Some contend for suspension ; others deny it, but say we never can recall 
thoughts formed while the mind is in that state, for reasons not yet 
understood. 

" Secondly : Those who, in approaching death, reach the first state of 
insensibility, and recover from it, are unconscious of any mental activity, 
and have no thoughts which they can recall. 

" Thirdly: If this is so, why, then, should those who had travelled fur- 
ther into the land of death, and had sunk deeper into the condition of 
bodily inaction, when recovered, be conscious of mental action, and 
remember thoughts more vivid than ever had flashed across their souls 
in the health of boyhood, under a vernal sun, and on a plain of flowers ? 

"After this, I felt somewhat inclined to watch, when it became my 
business, year after year, to stand by the bed of death. That which I saw 



104 ST-AGE3 IN TRANCE. 

was not calculated to protract and deepen the slumbers of infidelity, but 
rather to dispose toward a degree of restlessness ; or, at least, to further 
observation. I knew that the circle of stupor, or insensibility, drawn 
around life, and through which all either pass, or seem to pass, who go 
out of life, was urged by some to prove that the mind could not exist 
unless it be in connection with organized matter. For the same reason, 
others have contended that our souls must sleep until the morning of the 
resurrection, when we shall regain our bodies. That which I witnessed 
for myself, pushed me (willing or unwilling) in a different direction. 
Before I relate these facts, I must ofFer something which may illustrate, 
to a certain extent, the thoughts toward which they pointed. 

" If we were to stand on the edge of a very deep ditch or gulf, on the 
distant verge of which a curtain hangs which obstructs the view, we 
might feel a wish to know what is beyond it, or whether there is any 
light in that unseen land. Suppose we were to let down a ladder, pro- 
tracted greatly in its length, and ask a bold adventurer to descend and 
make discoveries. He goes to the bottom, and then returns, telling us 
that there he could see nothing — that all was total darkness. We might 
very naturally infer the absence of light there ; but if we concluded that 
his powers of vision had been annihilated, or that there could surely be 
no light in the land beyond the curtain, because, to reach that land, a 
veiy dark ravine must be crossed, it would have been weak reasoning ; 
so much so, that, if it contented us, we must be easily satisfied. It gave 
me pain to notice many — nay, many physicians — who on these very 
premises, or on something equally weak, were quieting themselves in the 
deduction that the soul sees no more after death. Suppose this adven- 
turer descends again, and then ascends the other side, so near the top that 
he can reach the curtain and slightly lift it. When he returns, he tells us 
that his vision had been suspended totally as before, but that he went 
nearer the distant lafid, and it was revived again ; that, as the curtain 
was lifted, he saw brighter light than he had ever seen before. We 
would say to him : ' A certain distance does suspend ;•■, but inaction is not 
loss of sight : only travel on further, and you will see again.' We can 
understand that any one might go to the bottom of that ravine a thousand 
times ; he might remain there for days, and, if he went no further, he 
could tell, on his return, nothing of the unseen regions. 

" Something like this was illustrated by the facts noted during many 
years' employment in the medical profession. A few cases must be 
taken is examples from the list. 

" I was called to see a female, who departed under an influence which 
causes the patient to faint again and again, more and still more profoundly, 
until life is extinct. For the information of physicians, I mention, it was 
uterine hemorrhage from inseparably-attached placenta. When recov- 
ered from the first condition of syncope, she appeared as unconscious, or a? 
destitute of activity of spirit, as others usually do. She sank again and 
revived : it was still the same. She fainted more profoundly still ; and 



ANECDOTES. 105 

when awake again, she appeared as others usually do who have no 
thoughts which they can recall. At length she appeared entirely gone. 
It did seem as though the struggle was forever past. Her weeping rela- 
tives clasped their hands and exclaimed : ' She is dead V but, unexpect- 
edly, she waked once more, and, glancing her eyes on one who sat near, 
exclaimed : ' Oh, Sarah, I was at an entirely new place V and then sunk 
to remain insensible to the things of the place we live in. 

" Why she, like others in fainting, should have no thoughts which she 
could recall, when not so near death as she afterward was when she 
had thought, T could not clearly explain. Why her greatest activity of 
mind appeared to happen during her nearest approach to the future 
world, and while so near that, from that stage, scarcely any ever return 
who once reach it, seemed somewhat perplexing to me. I remembered, 
that in the case recorded by Dr. Rush, w T here the man recovered who 
was, to all appearance, entirely dead, his activity of mind was unusual. 
He thought he heard and saw things unutterable. He did not know 
whether he was altogether dead or not. St. Paul says he was in a con- 
dition so near to death, that he could not tell whether he was out of the 
body or not, but that he heard things unutterable. I remembered that 
Tennant, of New Jersey, and his friends, could not decide whether or not 
he had been out of the body; but he appeared to be so some days, and 
thought his discoveries unutterable. The man who cuts his finger and 
faints, recovering speedily, has no thoughts, or remembers none : he does 
not approach the distant edge of the ravine. These facts appeared to 
me poorly calculated to advance the philosophical importance of one 
who has discovered from sleep, or from syncope, that there is no other 
existence, because this is all which we have seen. They appeared to me 
rather poorly calculated to promote the tranquility of one seeking the 
comforts of atheism. For my own part, I never did desire the consola- 
tions of everlasting nothingness; I never could covet a plunge beneath 
the black wave of eternal forgetfulness, and cannot say that these obser- 
vations, in and of themselves, gave me pain; but it was evident that 
thousands of the scientific were influenced by the weight of a small peb- 
ble to adopt a creed — provided that creed contradicted Holy Writ. I 
had read and heard too much of man's depravity, and of his love for dark- 
ness, not to see that it militated against my system of deism, if it should 
appear that the otherwise learned should neglect to observe, or if 
observant, should be satisfied with the most superficial view, and, seiziug 
some shallow and questionable facts, build hastily upon them a fabric 
for eternity. 

" In the cases of those who, recovering from yellow fever, thought 
they had enjoyed intercourse with the world of spirits, they were indi- 
viduals who had appeared to be dead. 

"-The following fact took place in recent days. Similar occurrences 
impressed me during years of observation. In the city of St. Louis, a 
female departed, who had a rich portion of the comforts of Christianitv. 



106 ANECDOTES. 

It was alter some kind of spasm, that was strong enough to have been 
the death-struggle, that she said — in a whisper, being unable to speak 
aloud — to her young pastor: 'I had a sight of home, and I saw my 
Saviour!' 

" There were others, who, after wading as far as that which seemed to 
be the middle of the river, and, returning, thought they had seen a dif- 
ferent world, and that they had an antepast of hell. But these cases we 
pass over, and look at facts which point along the same road we have 
been travelling. 

" I was surprised to find that the condition of mind in the case of those 
who were dying, and of those who only thought themselves dying, dif- 
fered very widely. I had supposed that the joy or the grief of death 
originated from the fancy of the patient, (one supposing himself very near 
to great happiness, and the other expecting speedy suffering,) and resulted 
in pleasure or apprehension. My discoveries seemed to overturn this 
theory. Why should not the professor of religion who believes himself 
dying, when he really is not, rejoice as readily as when he is departing, 
if his joy is the offspring of expectation ? Why should not the alarm of 
the scoffer, who believes himself dying and is not, be as uniform and as 
decisive as when he is in the river, if it comes of fancied evil or cow- 
ardly terrors ? The same questions I asked myself again and again. I 
have no doubt that there is some strange reason connected with our nat- 
ural disrelish for truth, which causes so many physicians, alter seeing such 
facts so often, never to observe them. During twenty years of observa- 
tion, I found the state of the soul belonging to the dying was, uniformly 
and materially, unlike that of those who only supposed themselves depart- 
ing. This is best made plain by noting cases which occurred. 

" 1. There was a man who Relieved himself converted, and his friends, 
judging from his walk, hoped with him. He was seized with disease, 
and believed himself within a few paces of the gate of futurity. He felt 
no joy ; his mind was dark, and his soul clouded. His exercises were 
painful, and the opposite of every enjoyment. He was not dying. He 
recovered. He had not been in the death-stream. After this he was 
taken again. He believed himself dying, and he was not mistaken. All 
was peace, serenity, hope, triumph. 

"2. There was a man who mocked at holy things. He became 
seriously diseased, and supposed himself sinking into the death-slumber. 
He was not frightened. His fortitude and composure were his pride, 
and the boast of his friends. The undaunted firmness with which he 
could enter futurity was spoken of exultingly. It was a mistake. He 
was not in the condition of dissolution. His soul never had been on the 
line between two worlds. After this he was taken ill again. He sup- 
posed, as before, that he was entering the next state, and he really 
was; but his soul seemed to feel a different atmosphere. The horrors of 
these scenes have been often described, and are often seen. I need not 



CASE OF ILLUSTRATION 107 

endeavor to picture such a departure here. The only difficulty hi which 
I was thrown by such cases was, ' Why was he not thus agonized when 
he thought himself departing ? Can it be possible that we can stand so 
precisely on the dividing line, that the gale from both this and the coming 
world may blow upon our cheek ? Can we have a taste of the exercises 
of the next territory before we enter it?' When I attempted to account 
for this on the simple ground of bravery and cowardice, I was met by 
the two following facts : — 

" First, I have known those (the cases are not unfrequent) who were 
brave, who had stood unflinching in battle's whirlpool. They had 
resolved never to disgrace their system of unbeJef by a trembling death. 
They had called to Christians in the tone of resolve, saying: 'I can die 
as coolly as you can.' 1 had seen those die from whom entire firmness 
might fairly be expected. I had heard groans, even if the teeth were 
clenched for fear of complaint, such as I never wish to hear again ; and I 
had looked into countenances, such as I hope never to see again. 

" Again, I had seen cowards die. I had seen those depart who were 
naturally timid, who expected themselves to meet death with fright 
and alarm. I had heard such, as it were, sing before Jordan was half 
forded. I had seen faces where, pallid as they were, I beheld more 
celestial triumph than I had ever witnessed anywhere else. In that voice 
there was a sweetness, and in that eye there was a glory, which I never 
could have fancied in the death-spasms, if I had not been near. 

" The condition of the soul, when the death-stream is entered, is not 
the same with that which it becomes (oftentimes) when it is almost 
passed. The brave man who steps upon the ladder across the dark 
ravine, with eye undaunted and haughty spirit, changes fearfully, in many 
cases, when he comes near enough to the curtain to lift it. The Christian 
who goes down the ladder, pale and disconsolate, oftentimes starts with 
exultation, and tries to burst into a song when almost across. 

" Case of illustration. — A revolutionary officer, wounded at the 
battle of Germantown, was praised for his patriotism. The war ended; 
but he continued still to fight, in a different way, under the banner of 
one whom he called the Captain of his salvation. The applause of men 
never made him too proud to talk of the Man of Calvary. The hurry of 
life's driving pursuits could not consume all his time, or make him forget 
to kneel by the side of his consort, in the circle of his children, and 
anticipate a happy meeting in a more quiet clime. 

" To abbreviate this history, his life was such that those who knew 
him believed, if any one ever did die happily, this man would be one 
of that class. I saw him when the time arrived. He said to those 
around him : ' I am not as happy as I could wish, or as I had expected. 
I cannot say that J distrust my Saviour, for I know in whom I have be- 
lieved; but I have not that pleasing readiness to depart which I had 
looked for.' This distressed his relatives beyond expression. His 



108 DYIX3 FANCIES. 

friends were greatly pained, for they had looked for triumph. His d& 
parture was very slow, and still his language was: 'I have no exhilara 
tion and delightful readiness in my travel.' The weeping circle pressed 
around him. Another hour passed. His hands and his feet became 
entirely cold. The feeling of heart remained the same. Another 
hour passes, and his vision has grown dim, but the state of his soul is 
unchanged. His daughter seemed as though her body could not sustain 
her anguish of spirit, if her father should cross the valley before the 
cloud passed from his sun. She (before his hearing vanished) made an 
agreement with him, that, at any stage as he travelled on, if he had a 
discovery of advancing glory, or a foretaste of heavenly delight, he 
should give her a certain token with his hand. His hands he could still 
move, cold as they were. She sat holding his hand, hour after hour. In 
addition to his sight, his hearing at length failed. After a time he ap- 
peared almost unconscious of anything, and the obstructed breathing 
peculiar to death was advanced near its termination, when he gave the 
token to his pale but now joyous daughter, and the expressive flash of 
exultation was seen to spread itself through the stiffening muscles of his 
face. When his child asked him to give a signal if he had any happy 
view of heavenly light, with the feelings and opinions I once "owned, 1 
could have asked: ' Do you suppose that the increase of the death-chill 
will add to his happiness ? Are you to expect, that as his eyesight 
leaves, and as his hearing becomes confused, and his breathing convulsed, 
and as he sinks into that cold, fainting, sickening condition of pallid 
death, that his exultation is to commence?' 

" It did then commence. Then is the time when many, who enter the 
dark valley cheerless, begin to see something that transports ; but some 
are too low to tell of it, and their friends think they departed under a 
cloud, when they really did not. It is at this stage of the journey that 
the enemy of God, who started with look of defiance and words of pride, 
seems to meet with that which alters his views and expectations; but he 
cannot tell it, for his tongue can no longer move. 

" Those who inquire after and read the death of the wife of the cel- 
ebrated John Newton, will find a very plain and very interesting in- 
stance, where the Saviour seemed to meet with a smiling countenance 
his dying servant, when she had advanced too far to call back to her sor- 
rowful friends, and tell them of the pleasing news. 

" My attention was awakened very much by observing the dying fan- 
cies of the servants of this world, differing with such characteristic 
singularity from the fancies of the departing Christian. It is no uncom- 
mon thing for those who die, to believe they see, or hear, or feel, that 
which appears only fancy to by-standers. Their friends believe that it is 
the overturning of their intellect. I am not about to enter into the dis- 
cussion of the question, whether it is, or is not, always fancy. Some 
attribute it to more than fancy ; but inasmuch as, in many instances, the 



TEST OF DEATH. 109 

mind is deranged while its habitation is falling into ruins around it, and 
inasmuch as it is the common belief that it is only imagination of which 
I am writing, we will look at it under the name of fancy. 

" The fanciful views of the dying servants of sin, and the devoted 
friends of Christ, were strangely different, as far as my observation 
extended. One who had been an entire sensualist and a mocker at re- 
ligion, while dying, appeared in his senses in all but one thing. ' Take 
that black man from the room,' said he. He was answered that there 
was none in the room. He replied: 'There he is, standing near the 
window. His presence is very irksome to me — take him out.' After a 
time, again and again, his call was : ' Will no one remove him ? There 
he is— surely some one will take him away V 

" I was mentioning to another physician my surprise that he should 
have been so much distressed if there had been many blacks in the room, 
for he had been waited on by them, day and night, for many years ; also 
that the mind had not been diseased in some other respect : when he 
told me the names of two others (his patients) — men of similar lives — 
who were tormented with the same fancy, and in the same way, while 
dying. 

" A young female, who called the Man of Calvary her greatest friend, 
was, when dying, in her senses, in all but one particular. ' Mother,' she 
would say, pointing in a certain direction, ' do you see those beautiful 
creatures V Her mother would answer: ' No, there is no one there, my 
dear.' She would reply : ' Well, that is strange. 1 never saw such 
countenances and such attire. My eye never rested on anything so 
lovely.' Oh, says one, this is all imagination, and the notions of a mind 
collapsing ; wherefore tell of it ? My answer is, that I am not about to 
dispute or to deny that it is fancy ; but the fancies differ in features and 
in texture. Some in their derangement call out: ' Catch me, I am sink- 
ing — hold me, I am falling.' Others say : ' Do you hear that music ? O, 
were ever notes so celestial !' This kind of notes, and these classes of 
fancies, belonged to different classes of individuals ; and who they were, 
was the item which attracted my wonder. Such things are noticed by 
few, and remembered by almost none ; but I am inclined to believe that, 
if notes were kept of such cases, volumes of interest might be formed. 

" My last remark here, reader, is, that we necessarily speak somewhat 
in the dark of such matters ; but you and I will know more shortly 
Both of us will see and feel for ourselves, where we cannot be mistaken, 
in the course of a very few months or years." 

['• Cause and Cure of Infidelity," by Rev. David Nelson — American Tract 
Society. Pages 264-276.] 

10 



CONVERSATION VII. 

OPERATION OF MEDICIN1). 

Lady. Here is a box of pills, seat me, this morning, 
by a neighbor, who was in last evening when my son 
entered, and having noticed a number of little black 
spots on his face, said his blood was in a bad state, and 
that these pills would purify it. 

Doctor. Frequently washing the face will remove 
the black spots, or worms, as they are commonly called. 
You have, no doubt, often noticed an oily matter on the 
face ; the oil is made by minute glands lying under the 
external skin ; these glands send out a tube to carry the 
oil to the surface ; sometimes dust will collect on the 
orifice of the tube, and form the black spots your neigh- 
bor observed on George ; the oil thus prevented egress, 
becomes hardened, and, when squeezed out, resembles a 
worm from the shape of the tube. 

Lady. What is the use of this oil ? 

Doctor. To grease or lubricate the external skin, so 
as to prevent irritation either from atmospheric causes, 
or the motion of the muscles under it. To return to the 
pills, can you tell me of any mode by which they could 
gain access to the blood, to effect such an important 
object as purifying it ? 

Lady. I have always considered that medicines oper- 
ated by changing the nature of the blood; but I now 
see that they cannot approach it ; to do so requires a 



SALT PEACHES. Ill 

passage through the lacteals, mesenteric glands, and 
thoracic duct ; and you have informed me that even the 
pyloric orifice of the stomach will not allow anything to 
pass it, except properly-prepared chyme. 

Doctor. Allowing, for a moment, the pills entered 
the blood, what would ensue? 

Lady. They w T ould be instantly taken out of the cir- 
culation either by the lungs or kidneys, which are excre- 
ting glands, acting, I suppose, as constables to M emove 
everything offending and unnecessary. 

Doctor. There is a complete system of guards sta- 
tioned in our bodies, to prevent the entrance of improper 
substances, beginning with the warnings of taste ; but 
unhealthy agents, by presenting themselves too fre- 
quently, will at last accustom the sentinels to their ap- 
pearance, and can then enter with impunity, and without 
danger of being ejected by the excretory organs. 

This fact may sometimes be witnessed in the vegeta- 
ble kingdom. The late Dr. Mitchell, of this city, had 
once sent to him a basket of saline-tasting peaches. 
Around the base of the tree upon which they grew, a 
quantity of brine had been thrown. The spongioles or 
leech-suckers at the roots, at first, refused the salty mat- 
ter admittance, but, their excitability (irritability) being 
altered by continued contact, at last sucked them up, 
and thus a strange phenomenon was the result. 

Alcohol has produced the same effect on the human 
system. A surgeon mentions a case of setting fire to 
the blood of a confirmed drunkard, which he had just 
drawn, its strong odor tempting the experiment. 

Lady. That drunkard was not much removed, I 
should think, from a state of spontaneous combustion. 

Doctor. Probably not ; saturating the system with 



112 SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION. 

alcohol is perhaps one of the first steps in that process. 
Bone is composed of a mixture of phosphoric acid and 
lime {phosphate of lime) ; as an acid is the union of a base 
with a certain amount of oxygen, phosphoric acid is made 
of phosphorus and oxygen. When the chemist wishes to 
exhibit intense combustion to his audience, he throws a 
piece of phosphorus into a jar of oxygen gas, and pro- 
duces a blaze rivalling that of the sun. In a healthy 
state of the system, the life power controls all the ele- 
ments, and, as shown in the vegetable kingdom, only 
allows them to unite in a manner that subserves its own 
purposes ; but when lowered and debilitated by excess- 
ive stimulus, the power becomes weakened, and finally 
lost in death ; the elements then obey their natural 
affinities, and a virulent internal combustion ensues. 

Lady. The drunkard, in a double sense, then, is a 
self-moving porter-house. Is it not very strange, that, 
with all the clear and accurate information known rela- 
tive to the organs and their functions, such profound 
ignorance on the subject of the operation of medicine 
should exist ? 

Doctor. You have quoted, almost verbatim, the com- 
mon jargon of the day; it is 'used by those noted for 
vague and confused notions on physiology. I do not 
think any man, who cannot give the rationale of the 
medicine he prescribes, should be trusted to practice. 
So far from being dark and in any way incomprehen 
sible, it is easily explained, and the effects of medicine 
capable of being predicted with almost mathematical 
certainty. 

The study of the different organs in the system, after 
the life power has departed, is called Anatomy. When 
living and proper agents stimulate irritability, so as to 



CONSERVATIVE POWER, 113 

produce a healthy action of these organs, the study is 
called Physiology. When improper agents or stimuli 
act on irritability, an alteration of the vital powers en- 
sues, with a corresponding alteration of function, disease 
results, and its study is called Pathology. In the latter 
case, how do you imagine the system can become right 
again ? 

Lady. Only, 1 should think, by the direct interposition 
of the Almighty ? 

Doctor. After the Croton aqueduct was finished, the 
pipes laid down, and the whole in successful operation, 
do you suppose anything more was required ? 

Lady. Yes, a company of superintendents and labor- 
ers, to constantly inspect every part with the greatest 
care, and instantly repair whatever breaks in the line, or 
other damages might occur. The water-works would 
not even be safe without such a precaution. 

Doctor. The life power has an exactly similar re- 
serve — a distinct and powerful conservative principle, 
called by the older physicians, who were well acquaint- 
ed w T ith it, the Vis Medicatrix Naturce. Whenever a 
part is injured, it is the office of this principle to come 
forward and repair it ; so very intelligent appears its 
operation, that some have attributed the effects to a 
special interference of the Creator, and others supposed 
it was the rational soul. 

Lady. The two seeds cited in your article on the 
Vegetable Kingdom, to show the difference between the 
forces of life and those of chemistry, brought instant 
conviction to my mind, and the clear conceptions I then 
acquired have proved serviceable since in pursuing this 
subject. Can you not illustrate the conservative prin- 
ciple in a similar manner ? 
10* 



114 DORMOUSE. 

Doctor. Have you ever* read the natural history of 
the dormouse ? 

Lady. It is one of the hybernating or winter-sleep- 
ing animals ; in summer it is very lively and frolic- 
some ; as autumn approaches, it becomes very fat ; and 
when cold weather sets in, retires to a concealed nook 
to sleep out the winter, but comes forth in the spring 
almost fleshless. While in the hybernating state, its 
breathing is very slow, and its temperature the same as 
that of the surrounding atmosphere. 

Doctor. If a dormouse is taken from its sheltered 
hole, in the midst of winter, and placed in a receiver 
surrounded with a freezing mixture, some very curious 
phenomena will be evolved. As the cold increases, 
and the little portion it had is "becoming absorbed, its 
breathing will be proportionally slower, and the heart 
pulsate more feebly; this state of things continues — the 
animal constantly failing— until a point is reached where 
remaining another moment would destroy life. At this 
very point an unseen power presents its workings, a 
hidden spring is touched, and an evident change takes 
place with extreme rapidity ; the pulse becomes fuller 
and faster; a warmth diffuses itself over the surface; 
the eyes brighten and limbs contract ; finally, in less 
than three minutes, the little animal is as hot, and his 
pulse as rapid, as in the midst of summer. Take the 
dormouse now out of the receiver, and expose him to 
the open air, and his torpidity gradually returns ; it is 
then best to restore him to his former nook. The con- 
servative power that preserved the dormouse from 
death, we name the Vis Medicatrix Nature. 

Lady. How is this power developed in the human 
body ? 



TRUE PHYSICIAN. 115 

Doctor. Let us suppose a combination of peculiar 
circumstances, as the poisonous air of a marsh (marsh 
miasmata), to act on our excitability, an injurious influ- 
ence is immediately exerted upon the system ; it sinks 
quickly, a chill is felt, and this chill increases, lowering 
and d-epressing us, till a point is gained (as in the dor- 
mouse experiment), from which we cannot descend with 
life ; at this point the conservative power awakes ; it acts 
on the other powers, more especially on the brain ; the 
nervous secretion becomes altered and radiated to every 
part ; a change is induced, fever ensues, and with it a 
long train of other symptoms which finally terminate 
in profuse perspiration, and a restoration to health. 

Lady. Then fever, and the symptoms which are 
commonly considered the disease itself, are nothing 
more than signals of battle going on within for the pur- 
pose of liberating us from injurious influences. If such 
be the case, why does the physician interfere in the mat- 
ter at all, and of what use are doctors ? 

Doctor. The true physician remains a spectator, or 
rather general, watching the battle's progress with a 
careful eye ; knowing each separate stage and crisis, 
and how far nature can be trusted, he often does nothing 
more than to clear the battle-field, (remove injurious in- 
fluences,) and allow her to combat alone. 

Lady. Suppose it becomes necessary for him to 
interfere ? 

Doctor. *If nature cannot cope successfully with the 
existing form of disease, it is his business to substitute 
another form which she can conquer. It is a pathologi- 
cal law that there can be but one disease at a time in 
the system ; and, acting cto that law, he brings some 
influence stronger than the original one to bear on ex- 



110 ARSENIC. 

citability ; in other words, he must produce a different 
alteration of the vital powers, which he is certain the 
conservative principle can rectify. 

Lady. If it is stronger than the original one, why 
should it not be still worse for the vis medicatrix to 
combat ? 

Doctor. Each thing produces an influence peculiar 
to itself; and our ideas of strength are only compara- 
tive. What will powerfully depress excitability may 
give the vis medicatrix little effort to overcome, and 
vice versa. 

There is a class of bodies, which, properly pre- 
scribed, produce a decided and powerful effect on exci- 
tability ; an effect which experience has taught us it is 
always in the power of the vis medicatrix to subaue, 
and restore the system when laboring under their influ- 
ence to health. Such are the medicines, as opium, cam- 
phor, arsenic, and quinine. 

Lady. Is arsenic a medicine ? 

Doctor. A very useful one. You must not suppose 
that its only use was to make stearine candles and Ger- 
man silver spoons. Nothing in nature was ever created 
for murderous purposes ; it is man who perverts them. 

Lady. After the effect is produced on excitability by 
the medicine, the original malady disappears ; the phy- 
sician is then treating sickness he has himself induced, 
and curing diseases of his own infliction. 

Doctor. Exactly so ; and this shows y<£i what care 
and judgment should be exercised in selecting the right 
medicine. Cases occur in which, out of a list of twenty 
purgatives, one alone is suited to the existing nature of 
the complaint. 

Lady. But, doctor, how can you discover all these 



CASE OF DISEASE, 117 

separate modifications of disease ; how can you possi- 
bly tell what is going on within the system ? 

Doctor. In the same manner as we discover the ex- 
istence of a life principle and its properties — that is, by 
observing the phenomena they exhibit. 

You will remember that every part of the body has a 
separate office to fulfil, that there are two lives, an ani- 
mal and vegetable, in action, developing distinct series 
of phenomena, and that the study of all the functions in 
health is physiology. 

When pernicious influences act, and the whole train 
becomes disordered, the physician, previously well ac- 
quainted with the results produced by healthy actions, 
observes the changed appearances disease presents to 
his view, and from these deduces his opinion relative to 
the amount of injury, and acts accordingly. 

Lady. Will you be kind enough to apply this to a 
particular case ? 

Doctor. I was sent for, yesterday, to see a man, who 
I was told had been ill for two or three days. On 
entering the room, and observing his countenance 
(often a sufficient index by itself to the experienced), its 
wild and haggard aspect led me to look for abdominal 
disease. 

Sitting down by his bed, I inquired the history of the 
case, and then proceeded (without his suspecting it) to 
a regular examination. 

The functions of animal life are sensation, thought, 
and locomotion. Everything had acquired a bitter 
taste to him, and noise of any kind was agonizing ; his 
mind was wandering; and, to conclude with animal 
life, he was feeble as a child. 

Turning to the vegetable system, I found respiration 



118 SYMPTOMS. 

more frequent than in health, but perfectly full, and no 
pain about the chest ; the pulse fast and rather weak, 
but steady ; this absolved the heart and lungs. Upon 
examining the tongue, I found it covered with a thick 
yellowish-brown fur, characterizing trouble in the liver ; 
and as the lining membrane for nostrils, mouth, stomach, 
liver-tube, etc., is one continuous sheet, disease of one 
part would soon extend along the whole surface by 
sympathy, and, reaching the tongue, paint on As surface 
the cause of trouble for the information of the phy- 
sician ; the skin had a yellowish tinge, was at times cold 
and moist, and at others hot and dry ; the bowels and 
liver, more especially the stomach, were very sensitive 
to pressure, and vomiting came on every ten or fifteen 
minutes, at which times he ejected a greenish watery 
fluid, etc., etc. 

The day of his attack, he had been eating a very 
hearty dinner, with some unripe fruit as dessert, and 
then quickly returned to work (he was a stone-cutter) 
beneath a hot sun; soon getting sick, he went home, 
where an old woman, a great doctress of the neigh- 
borhood, had been summoned to attend him; she called 
his disease janders, and every hour or two, during the 
day, poured down his stomach strong tansy tea. 

I concluded that his unwholesome dinner had been 
imperfectly digested, and when the chyme wished to 
pass the pyloric orifice, the sentinel tightly contracted 
his muscular ring, and refused admittance by blocking 
up the passage. The hot sun, acting on the brain, 
altered the nervous secretion, a share of which, being 
radiated to the stomach, made matters worse ; and the 
stomach, finding itself utterly incapable, in such cir- 
cumstances, of re-digesting the food, cast it off entirely by 






VIS MEDICATRIX NATURAE. 119 

the sesophagus ; the bile that was preparer; o act on the 
chyme being poured out about the time it ought to be 
there, and finding nothing to act on, altered the excita- 
bility of the sentinel at the pyloric orifice, and gained 
admission into the stomach, from whence it was imme- 
diately thrown out, sharing the fate of the food. To 
crown all, the tansy tea, by producing irritation, kept 
up the morbid action, involving all the parts connected 
with the lining membrane, as the liver, etc. 

I caused him to be removed into a cool and quiet 
room; had his feet bathed with mustard and warm 
water, to assist the action of a mustard plaster on his 
stomach ; and then caused a strong injection to be ad- 
ministered, leaving a powder to be taken at a certain 
time afterward. The vomiting ceased, the bowels 
moved, a terrible headache (which I forgot to mention 
in my notice of sensation) disappeared, etc., etc., and 
the next morning found him free from all pain, but 
very weak. This is called the active plan of treat- 
ment. 

Very frequently, a mere removal of injurious influ- 
ences, by allowing the vis medicatrix free scope, will be 
sufficient to cure. This is called the expectant plan of 
treatment. 

Lady, Nature, after all, has to fight her own battles, 
the physician generally dc;ng nothing, except, by re- 
moving injurious influences, to show fair play; the ut- 
most he can perform is to substitute one morbific cause 
for another. If it were not for the vis medicatrix, there 
would be no science of medicine — we should all die off 
as soon as injured. 

Doctor. I am glad that you understand so well 
what I have been endeavoring to teach ; you have now 



120 WATER CURE. 

learned enough of the principles of medicine to pursue 
the study as much as you choose. 

Lady. Does fascination act by inducing a new dis- 
ease ? 

Doctor. Most assuredly ; it forms no exception to 
the mode of operation of the others, from all of which it 
differs, however, by giving the vis medicatrix less effort 
to displace its effects. I suppose this fact will make no 
advice needed with regard to fascinating healthy per- 
sons, as direct disease is thereby induced. 

Lady. Why did I not get well directly after the first - 
fascination ? 

Doctor. From the influence of habit, and the same 
causes still acting that produced your disease in the first 
instance. Directly after the effect of each operation 
was over, and before the disease again seized upon you, 
the system had time to gain strength ; as the intervals 
increased, more strength was acquired, until, at length, 
your frame was strong enough to resist the injurious 
influence, and then your recovery was complete. 

Lady. In what manner does the water cure operate ? 
A friend of mine was very anxious that I should try it \ 
he thought every case of chronic disease in the conti- 
nent of Europe would soon be cured at Graefenberg. 

Doctor. I have very little doubt but that it would 
have killed you. You can no more expect one particu- 
lar medicine, or plan of treatment, to cure all diseases, 
than to find one book which would suit all readers ; or 
one coat capable of fitting all men. Wherever life is 
present, variety is certain to be found, as well in dis- 
ease as in health. In certain cases, fascination, as a 
curative agent, is invaluable ; but, recommend it as a 
succedaneum, and it is certain to do much mischief. 



HOMXEOPATHY. 121 

Hydropathy, as a curative agent, acts exactly on the 
dormouse principle ; it depresses until the vis medicatrix 
rises to the rescue. The process, you will observe, 
has already been gone through with at the first time of 
the attack ; it says to nature, " You have failed in your 
attempt, try again." In many chronic cases of long 
standing it is certainly a valuable remedy ; that it is a 
new discovery, or that it will supercede all other reme- 
dies, are both ridiculous ideas. 

Lady. I am aware, doctor, that you have attentively 
examined homoeopathy ; and since such a golden oppor- 
tunity presents itself for inquiry, I should be much 
obliged if you w.ould tell me what it really is worth ; 
many of my friends think its cures are almost miraculous ? 

Doctor. Cases of medical treatment under such cir- 
cumstances, stand in the same relation to truth as the 
tricks of a juggler to the deductions of science; such 
reports, in fact, have elicited the remark that " medical 
facts are medical lies." Whatever militates against 
common sense and experience cannot be received as 
evidence. 

Lady. Their infinitessimal doses lead me to conclude 
that their object is to let nature, in all cases, take care 
of herself. Much harm cannot be done except by 
inducing delay. 

Doctor. That alone should condemn the whole mat- 
ter, as no where are " delays so dangerous" as in medi- 
cine, a life often turning on an hour of time. My study 
of Hannehman has led me to consider him possessed 
of remarkable talent, and that the whole system of ho- 
moeopathy is nothing more than a disguised recommenda- 
tion of fascination. Do you remember how he tests the 
strength of his medicines ? 
II 



122 FASCINATION 

Lady. By the number of dilutions ; the greater the 
number, the more powerful the medicine. 

Doctor. That simple fact should have led to the dis- 
covery of his meaning, the solution of his enigma. He 
directs his medicines to be prepared by hand, and consi- 
ders them increased in strength proportionally as the 
hand is laid upon them : this is nothing more than a 
practice, long known, of mesmerizing medicine for pa- 
tients. 

Lady. Still I should have thought that where so 
much was at stake, he would have given some intima- 
tion of his secret more plainly than that ; that he would 
even in some cases direct them to fascinate. 

Doctor. He has done so : where nature alone will 
cure, or the expectant plan will suffice, he directs the 
minimum doses ; in more serious cases, you must, to use 
his own words, " stroke the patient down with the palm 
of the hand till relief be obtained." 

His object, in concealing his real sentiments, was 
doubtless to escape the ridicule of the age in which he 
lived, If he possessed an acute sense of mirthfulness, 
great must have been his merriment to have known that 
glass factories, in many countries, were solely employed 
blowing his little vials ; thousands of apothecaries en- 
gaged in manufacturing medicines to fill those vials ; 
machines inventing to prepare his triturations and dilu- 
tions ; and, finally, hosts of the sons of Esculapius, 
equipped with whole pharmaceutical establishments in 
their coat pockets, visiting their patients, and who, ever 
and anon, were drawing forth the organcn of him upon 
whom they looked as more than mortal, to seek fresh 
instructions regarding the best nethod of dispensing 
sugar plums. 



COMMON SALT. 123 

It is rarely that persons will take pains to examine 
into any system of medicine ; the small amount of medi- 
cal knowledge out of the pale of the profession, owing 
most likely to the small amount within, has given an 
idea that the whole subject is nothing more than a sys- 
tem of guessing ; and those entertaining this view are 
rather pleased with homoeopathy, as being a practice in 
which wrong guessing cannot produce much detriment. 

Another source of injury to the science of medicine 
has been various hypotheses started by men who were 
not properly versed in the laws of life. During the 
prevalence of a certain deadly pestilence in the West 
Indies, the blood was, in all cases in those affected, dark, 
almost black. A physician, who had been bleeding a 
patient, found the dark blood, as soon as it gained the 
bowl, become of a bright healthy-looking red ; and, upon 
examining the matter, found the florid appearance was 
owing to some table salt which had been accidentally left 
in the bowl ; his sapient brain instantly conceived the 
idea that it was the loss of muriate of soda (common 
salt) in the blood that caused the fever. This fancied 
discovery changed his whole plan of treatment, and his 
after practice consisted in injecting solutions of salt 
into the veins, and giving it by the stomach. His fellow 
physicians followed his example as soon as the matter 
was published. The uniformly fatal termination of all 
cases treated in this absurd manner at length obliged 
the doctors to relinquish the practice ; but the hypothe- 
sis, like the bodies of ancient heroes, was accompanied 
to the grave by thousands of victims slaughtered to its 
honor. 

Lady. What is the meaning of transfusion of blood ? 

Doctor. It was discovered that where death would 



124 VACCINATION. 

ensue from the loss of blood, taking a supply from the 
veins of another and directly introducing it into that of 
the patient, would preserve life in many instances. 
The French received it with open arms, and were eager 
to embrace the advantages it offered. Supposing the 
secret of perpetual youth was made known, old age 
hastened to fill its veins with the blood of juvenescence. 
Though the majority who tried the plan fell victims to 
its fatal influence, it still continued to be the enthusiasm 
of the day till a prince of the blood royal was added to 
the list of victims. The laws immediately made it a 
penal offence, and it fell into disuse. 

A knowledge of the laws of life would have prevented 
all this victimizing, as it would also correct many popu- 
lar prejudices. You wished me, some time since, to 
vaccinate your son George, because more than seven 
years had elapsed since he had taken the cow-pox, and 
I could not then explain the reason why I did not think 
it was necessary. 

Our bodies are perpetually changing ; they are not 
tne same to-morrow as to-day. This fact, which they 
could perceive but not explain, puzzled the ancients : 
" To be another, yet the same !" was the astonished ex- 
clamation of an old philosopher. By the constant ab- 
sorption and deposition of matter, it has been computed 
that we undergo a total change every seven years ; and 
persons informed of this, think the effect of vaccination 
worn off, when every particle of matter that was 
present in the body at the time of the operation is de- 
parted. The life piinciple is entirely forgotten in this 
estimate ; impressions made on it are indelible ; every 
particle of matter it directs to be removed, is replaced 
by an exactly similar particle ; thus a depression in the 



PRIESTS OF NATUR&. l25 

skin, or mark of any kind, often remains for life. When 
perfectly vaccinated, the system is forever surely guard- 
ed against the attacks of small-pox; but when any 
doubt exists relative to the former effect, it is well to 
repeat the operation. 

You must not be surprised to find doctors often disa- 
greeing with this explanation ; for there are as many sects 
in medicine as in theology. Many of them, perhaps a 
majority, consider the human body a vast chemical la- 
boratory, and scoff at the notion of a life power. Some 
of these affirm, and others deny, the existence of an im- 
mortal soul, by which last, when allowed to remain, 
those who believe in it solve all the living problems 
chemistry cannot explain. 

Since the days of Hippocrates, or rather his ancestor 
Esculapius, there has always been a church of faithful 
priests of nature, who closely observed her laws and 
obeyed her dictates. One after another of these has 
added his quota to the general amount of information, 
till, being fully prepared for generalizing, the great prin- 
ciples of health and disease have been established, which 
no doubt will continue in force till this mortal puts on 
immortality. These true physicians are known under 
the name of vitalists, or observers of life. 

Our opponents, when they talk of uncertainty and 

confusion, but proclaim the chaos existing in their own 

minds, on which the spirit of truth had never moved to 

correct disorder, and impart life and light. 

11* 



CONVERSATION VIII. 



PREVISION. 



Doctor. The patient, while under the influence of 
fascination, will, in some cases, often materially assist 
the treatment by prescribing remedies for himself, his 
instinctive faculties undergoing remarkable develop- 
ments. 

This power has been named prevision ; but I think it 
is susceptible of a two-fold distinction — that which re- 
lates to the organism, and by perceiving " a series of 
organic movements, consequent one upon the other," and 
thence foretelling results ; and that which is probably the 
communication of a superior being, in attendance upon 
us, and whose revelations are made only for special 
purposes. 

We will name the first organic, and the second 
revealed, prevision. 

Lady. This organic prevision seems to me nothing 
more than a development of the vis medicatrix naturse. 

Doctor. It certainly resembles it in many particu- 
lars, and the fact of its being possessed by the lower 
animals to a considerable extent favors your view. 

Bruce tells us that the African Arabs secure them- 
selves from the mortal consequences attending the bite 
of serpents, by chewing a particular root, and washing 
themselves with an infusion of certain plants in water ; 
he gives a particular account of several of these plants, 
some of which seem only capable of acting against the 






CURATIVE INSTINCTS, 127 

power of the serpent ; others, only against that of the 
scorpion ; and a third sort, against both ; and all wil 
operate both 'as an antidote and preventive. Vargus 
throws considerable light on the manner in which the 
Arabs acquired the knowledge of these plants ; he was 
a gentleman residing at Santa Fe, (S. A.,) who was 
accustomed to venture into the open fields and seize the 
largest and most venomous serpents, from whose bite 
he was perfectly protected by drinking a small portion 
of the juice of the quaco-witky, and inserting some in 
punctures made in his hands, breast, and feet. The 
name of the plant is derived from the Indian term for 
the serpent hawk, who was observed, before attacking 
poisonous serpents, to suck its juice, which, when tried 
for the same purpose by mankind, proved equally effi- 
cacious. 

An old writer long since remarked that no fact ap- 
peared better attested, in the history of human know- 
ledge, than that of a proficiency in the art of practical 
physic, far beyond the scope of their other attainments ; 
forming a curious but unfailing trait in the character of 
savages. Now, whether that proficiency was attained 
b} observations made on the instincts of the lower 
animals, or the result of their own organic prevision in 
a fascinated state, it is hard to discover ; perhaps it was 
compounded of both. 

The apes of Abyssinia are reported to have, by trials 
on themselves, first exhibited to men the laxative pro- 
perties of the cassia fistula. A dog having had some 
sheep's blood injected into his veins, was observed to 
immediately begin eating grass ; and this was consid- 
ered by the transfusers sufficient evidence that the na- 
ture of each animal resided in the blood, and that the 



128 TOAD AND SPIDER. 

dog would in future partake of the qualities of the 
sheep. A gross error ; the organic prevision of the 
dog warned him that to produce vomiting was to ob- 
tain relief from the pain caused by his cruel tormentors , 
hence his conduct ; for he is commonly observed, when 
sick, to eat a quantity of prickly grass, an expedient 
that seldom fails to answer the purposes of an emetic. 

Lady. I was once called, while in the country, to 
witness something of this kind. It was a toad fighting 
with a large spider ; every time the toad was bitten, it 
ran off, and, having eaten some plantain leaves, would 
return to the fight. A person present, while the frog 
was trying to reach the plantain, covered it up ; he 
swelled up immediately, and died in consequence. 

I am aware that hogs, after being kept for some time 
without salt, refuse food, and greedily devour ashes or 
cinders in great quantities. Some time ago, I met with 
an anecdote of a gentleman who, when sick, never used 
medicine ; giving, as reason, the example of a monkey 
in his possession, that, if ill, would abstain from food 
a few days, when he was always sure to recover health 
and spirits. 

Doctor. But that the fascinated patients of the Egyp- 
tian temples remembered their visions, I should have 
classed such cases in organic prevision: as an instance 
of the latter faculty, I will quote a case from the report 
of the commission of the Royal Academy of Medicine, 
and vouched for by them. 

" Pierre Cazot, twenty years of age, a working hatter, born of an 
epileptic mother, has been subject, from ten years of age, to attacks of 
epilepsy, which have recurred five or six times a week up to the time 
when he entered the Hopital de la Charitc, in the early part of the 
month of August, 1827. He was at once magnetized by M. Foissac, was 
placed in the magnetic sleep at the third sitting, and became somiiambi- 



ORGANIC PREVISION. 129 

lie at the tenth, which took place on the 19th of August. It was on 
that day, at nine o'clock in the morning, that he announced, that on the 
same day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, he should have an attack of 
epilepsy ; but that it might be prevented, if he was magnetized a little 
before that period. The verification of his prediction was preferred— 
and, therefore, no precaution was taken to prevent the paroxysm ; wo 
contented ourselves with observing him, without his having any suspicion 
that we were doing so. At one o'clock he was seized with a violent 
headache ; — at three he was obliged to go to bed, — and at four o'clock 
precisely the paroxysm attacked him, and lasted about five minutes. 
Two days afterwards, Cazot being in somnambulism, M. Fouquier sud- 
denly thrust a pin, of an inch long, between the thumb and the forefin- 
ger of the right hand ; with the same pin, he also pierced the lobe of the 
ear; — and the eyelids being separated, the white of the eye itself was 
repeatedly struck with the head of the pin without occasioning the 
smallest indication of sensibility. 

" The commission met at the Hopital de la Charite on the 24th of August, 
at nine in the morning, in order to observe the experiments which M. 
Fouquier, one of its members, proposed continuing upon this in.valid# 

" At this seance, M. Fouquier took his station about six feet in front of 
Cazot : he looked at him firmly — made use of no passes with the hands, — 
observed the most perfect silence, and Cazot was asleep in eight minutes. 
At three different times, a bottle of ammonia was held under his nose— - 
the countenance became flushed — the breathing quickened, but he did 
not awaken. M. Fouquier thrust a pin an inch long into the fore-arm ; 
afterwards, another pin was thrust to the depth of two lines, obliquely 
under the chest ; — a third was similarly inserted into the pit of the sto- 
mach ; and a fourth was thrust perpendicularly into the sole of the foot. 
M. Guersent pinched him in the fore-arm so severely as to leave a bruise 
mark ; — and M. Itard leaned the whole weight of his body upon his 
thigh. 

" We endeavored to tickle him by lightly passing a little piece of 
paper under the nose, upon the lips, upon the eyebrows, the eyelashes, 
the neck, and the soles of the feet — but nothing could awaken him. We 
then urged him with questions. ' How many more attacks will you 
have ?' ' During a year.' * Do you know whether these attacks will be 
near to each other?' ' No.' ' Will you have one this month ?' ' I shall 
have a fit on Monday the 27th, at twenty minutes before three o'clock. 
1 Will it be a strong one V 'It will not be half so strong as the last. 7 ' On 
what other day will you have an attack V After an expression of impa- 
tience, he answered, — ' A fortnight hence, that is to say, on the 7th of 
September.' ' At what hour V l At ten minutes before six in the morning. , 

mi The illness of one of his children obliged Cazot to leave la Charit6 
on that very day, the 24th of August. But it was agreed that he should 
return on Monday the 27 th, early in the morning, in order that the gt 



130 CASE OF CAZOT. 

which he had declared to be impending in the afternoon of that day, at 
twenty minutes before three, might be accurately observed 

" The steward, having refused to take him in when he presented him- 
self for admittance, Cazot repaired to the house of M. Foissac in order to 
complain of this refusal. M. Foissac, as he afterwards told us, preferred 
dissipating this attack by magnetism, to being a solitary witness to the 
occurrence, — and consequently we were unable to establish the exacti- 
tude of this prevision. But it still remained for us to observe the parox- 
ysm which he had announced for the 7th of September. M. Fouquier 
having caused Cazot to re-enter the hospital on the 6th, under the pre- 
text of paying him some attentions, which he could not pay out of that 
establishment, had him magnetized in the course of the day of the 6th 
by M. Foissac, who put him to sleep by the simple act of his will, and 
by steadfastly looking at him. In this sleep, Cazot repeated, that the next 
day he should have an attack at ten minutes before six in the morning, 
and that it might be prevented if he was magnetized a little before. At 
a signal agreed upon, and given by M. Fouquier, M. Foissac, of whose 
presence Cazot was ignorant, awakened him in the same way as he had 
putfcim to sleep, by the sole act of his will, notwithstanding the ques- 
tions which were addressed to the somnambulist, and which had no 
other object than to conceal from him the moment in which he ought to 
waken. 

" In order to be witnesses of this second attack, the commission met 
on the 7th of September, at a quarter before six in the morning, in the 
ward St. Michel, at la Charite. There they were informed, that the 
evening before, at eight o'clock, Cazot had been seized with headache, 
which had tormented him all night, — that this pain had occasioned the 
sensation of beating in his head, and that he had had some darting sensa- 
tions in his ears. Ten minutes before six o'clock we witnessed the epileptic 
attack, characterized by contraction and stiffness of the limbs, — by the 
repeated and forcible tossing of the head backwards, — by the convulsive 
closing of the eyelids, — by the retraction of the globe of the eye towards 
the roof of the orbit, — by sighs, — by screams, — by insensibility to severe 
pinching, — and by the biting of the tongue between the teeth. This set 
of symptoms lasted for about five minutes, during which, he had two 
remissions of some seconds each, and then a painful relaxation of the 
limbs, and sense of general exhaustion. 

"On the 10th of September, at ten o'clock at night, the commission 
met again at the house of M. Itard, in order to continue its inquiries 
upon Cazot: the latter was in the library, where conversation had been 
carried on with him till half-past seven, at which time, M. Foissac, who 
had arrived since Cazot, and had waited in an ante-chamber separated 
from the library by two closed doors, and a distance of twelve feet, began 
to magnetize him. Three minutes afterwards Cazot said, I think that 
Foissac is there, for I feel myself oppressed and enfeebled. At the 



OA.SE of cazot. 131 

expiration of eight minutes he was completely asleep. He was again 
questioned, and assured us, that in three weeks from that day, ihat is, 
on the first of October, he should have an epileptic paroxysm at ten 
minutes before noon. 

"It was desirable to observe with equal care, as on the 7th of Septem- 
ber, the epileptic attack which he had predicted for the 1st of October. 
With this view, the commission met together on that day at half-past 
eleven, at the house of M. Georges, manufacturer of hats, No. 17, Rue 
des Menetriers, where Cazot lived and worked. We learned from M. 
Georges, that he was a very regular workman, whose conduct was ex- 
cellent, — and that he was, both by the simplicity of his mind, and by his 
moral principles, absolutely incapable of lending himself to any decep- 
tion ; that he had had no attack of epilepsy since the one which the com- 
mission had witnessed at la Gharite ; — that not feeling himself well that 
morning, he had remained in his own chamber, and was not at work ; — 
that at this moment, there was with him an intelligent man, whose vera- 
city and discretion might be relied upon ; that this man had not told him 
he had predicted an attack for that day;— that it appeared that since the 
7th of September, M. Foissac had had some communication with Cazot, 
but without permitting the inference that he had in any way recalled to 
him his prediction, since, on the contrary, M. Foissac attached the highest 
importance to the circumstance, that no one should speak to the patient 
on the subject of what he had announced. At five minutes before twelve, 
M. Georges went up into a room situated immediately under that occu- 
pied by Cazot, and in one minute afterwards he came to inform us that 
the attack had supervened. We hastily ran to the sixth story, that is, 
MM. Guersent, Thillaye, Marc, Gueneau de Massy, Itard, and the Re- 
porter, where, on our arrival, the watch pointed at one minute to twelve 
by the true time. Assembled around the bed of Cazot, we distinguished 
the epileptic paroxysm characterized by the following symptoms : tetanic 
stiffness of the body and of the limbs — tossing of the head, and occasion- 
ally of the trunk of the body backwards, — a convulsive retraction, and 
up-turning of the eye, so that the white of the eye only is visible, — a 
very remarkable fullness of the face and neck,-— contraction of the jaws,— 
partial convulsive movements of the fibres of the muscles of the right arm 
and fore-arm; — soon afterwards so decided a tetanic attack, that the trunk 
of the body was so raised as to form the segment of a circle, of which the 
only bases were formed by the head and the feet ; which movements 
terminated by a sudden collapse. A few moments after this attack, that 
is, after one minute of relaxation, a new paroxysm, similar to the preced- 
ing one, took place ; there were uttered inarticulate sounds — his respira- 
tion very frequent and interrupted, — the larynx being rapidly and vio 
lently raised and depressed ; and the pulse beating from 132 to 160 in v 
minute : — there was no frothing at the mouth, nor contraction of tha 
thumbs to th^ inside of the palm *f the hand. At the end of six minutes 



132 CASE OF CAZCT. 

the paroxysm terminated by deep sighs, by relaxation of the limbs, and 
opening of the eyelids. 

" The invalid fixed an astonished look upon the persons present, and 
complained of being painfully stiff, especially in the right arm. 

u Although the commission could not doubt the veritable action pro- 
duced by magnetism upon Cazot, even without his knowledge, and at a 
certain distance from him, yet they desired to acquire a new proof of this 
state ; — and as it had been proved at the last seance, that M. Foissac had 
had some communication with him, and therefore might have told him 
that he had announced an attack for the 1st of October, the commission 
w r ere also desirous, while submitting Cazot to some new trials, to lead M. 
Foissac himself into error as to the day on which his epileptic should 
have announced as the next for the return of the paroxysm. By this 
plan we should shelter ourselves from every species of connivance, even 
supposing that a man, whom we had always seen honest and upright, 
could possibly have any secret or collusive understanding with a man 
without education, without intelligence, — and that in order to deceive 
us. We will confess that we did not ourselves do this iqjustice, even in 
thought, to either the one or the other; and we feel bound to render the 
same testimony to MM. Dupotet and Chapelain, of whom we have more 
than once had occasion to speak to you. 

" The commission met again on the 6th of October at noon, in the 
library of M. Bourdois, at which hour Cazot arrived there with his child, 
M. Foissac having been invited to come at half-past twelve: he was exact 
to his appointment, and remained in the ante-room, without the cogni- 
zance of Cazot, and without any communication with us. We sent to 
inform him, however, by a side door, that Cazot was seated on a sofa, 
placed ten feet from the door, which was closed, and that the commission 
requested he would magnetize, and awaken him also at that distance, he, 
M. Foissac, remaining in the ante-room, and Cazot in the library. 

" At twenty-three minutes before one, while Cazot was occupied with 
the conversation which we carried on among ourselves, or examining the 
pictures which adorn the library, M. Foissac, placed in the next room, 
began to magnetize him : we remarked that in four minutes Cazot began 
slightly to droop the eyelids-^that he had a restless unquiet air — and that 
in nine minutes he was asleep. M. Guer*ent, who had attended him for 
his epileptic attacks at the Hopital des Enfants, asked him if he remem- 
bered him : — lie answered affirmatively. M. Itard inquired, when he 
should have a paroxysm. He replied that it would be this day four 
weeks, (the 3rd of November,) at five minutes after four in the afternoon. 
He was then asked when he should have another, to which he answered, 
after apparent reflection and hesitation, that it would be five weeks after 
the one which he had just indicated — the 9th of December, at half past 
nine in the morning. 

" The process verbal of this seance having been read in the presence of 



CASE OF CAZOT. 133 

M. Foissac, in order that he might sign it with us, we wished, as it has 
been above remarked, to lead him into error : and in reading it to him, 
before presenting it for signature to the members of the commission, the 
reporter read, that the first attack of Cazot would take place on Sunday 
the 4th of, November, whereas the somnambulist had fixed Saturday the 
3rd. lie practised the same deceit with regard to the second; and M 
Foi&sac took a memorandum of these erroneous indications as if they had 
been exact ; but having some days afterwards put Cazot into somnambu- 
lism, as he was accustomed to do, in order to dispel his headaches, he 
learned from him, that it was the 3rd and not the 4th of November, that 
he ought to have a return of the fit, and he informed M. Itard of this on 
the 1st of November, believing that there had been an error in the pro- 
ces verbal, of which, nevertheless, M. Itard maintained the assumed cor- 
rectness. 

" The commission again took all the necessary precautions to enable 
them to observe the attack of the 3rd of November; — they met at four 
o'clock in the afternoon at the house of M. Georges ; they learned from 
him, — from his wife, — and from one of the work-people, that Cazot had 
gone through his customary labor all the morning, till two o'clook in the 
afternoon, and that during his dinner, he had complained of headache ; 
that nevertheless he had returned to his work, but that the headache 
increasing, and having felt giddy, he had retired to his own room — had 
gone to bed, and to sleep, MM. Bourdois, Fouquier, and the reporter, 
preceded by M. Georges, then went up stairs to Cazot's room : M. Geor- 
ges alone went in, and found him in a profound sleep, which he begged 
of us to observe through the door, which was partially open to the stair- 
case. M. Georges spoke loudly to him — shook him rather rudely, pulled 
him by the arm without awakening him. Cazot was then seized with 
the painful symptoms which constitute an attack of epilepsy, and precisely 
similar to that which we had formerly observed upon him. 

" The second attack announced at the seance of the 6th of October, for 
the 9th of December, that is, two months beforehand, took place at half 
past nine, or a quarter of an hour later than had been predicted, and was 
characterized by the same precursory phenomena, and by the same 
symptoms as those of the 7th of September, 1st of October, and the 3rd of 
November. 

" Lastly, on the 11th of February, 1328, Cazot fixed the period of a 
new attack for the 22nd of the following April, at five minutes before 
noon : and this announcement, like the preceding ones, was verified 
within five minutes, that is, at ten minutes before twelve. This attack 
was remarkable for its violence, for the species of madness with which 
Cazot bit his hand and fore-arm, — for the violent and repeated shocks 
with which the body was distorted, and for its having lasted thirty-five 
minutes, when M. Foissac, who was present, magnetized him. Very 
soon, this convulsive state yielded to the state of magnetic som»"»ambilism, 

J2 



134 CASE OF CAZOT, 

during which Cazot got out ot bed, sat down upon a chair, and said that 
he was very much fatigued ;— that he should have two more attacks one 
of which should be nine weeks from to-morrow (June 23rd,) at three 
minutes after six. He would not fix the second attack, because he mus-t 
think of what would take place beforehand, (at this moment he sent away 
his wife, who was present,) and added, that in about three weeks after 
the attack of the 23rd of June, he should go mad ; that his madness would 
last three days, during which he should be so mischievous, that he should 
attack every body ; — that he should even ill-treat his wife and his child ; 
that he ought not to be left alone with the in ; — and that he did not know, 
that he should not kill an individual without intending it. It would be 
necessary to bleed him from both feet ; ' then,- said he, 1 1 shall be well for 
the month of August ; and once cured, the disorder will not return, what- 
ever circumstances may happen to me afterwards.' 1 

" It was on the 22nd of April, that all these previsions were announced 
to us, and two days afterwards, the 24th, Cazot wishing to stop a run- 
away horse which had got the bit between his teeth, was violently thrown 
down against the wheel of a cabriolet, which occasioned a fracture of the 
left supra-orbitary ridge, and bruised him horribly. He was conveyed to 
the Hopital Beaujon, where he died on the 13th of May. On inspecting 
the body, and opening the head, there were found traces of recent mem- . 
branous inflammation, — purulent collections under the integuments of the 
skull, and at the extremity of the choroid plexus, a substance externally 
white, but yellowish internally, and which contained some small hydatids. 

" We see in this history a young man, subject for years to attacks of 
epilepsy, for which he had been treated successively ai" the Hopital des 
Enfants, and at Saint Louis, and in consequence of which he had been 
exempted from military service. Magnetism acted upon him, although 
he was perfectly ignorant of what was going on, — and he became som- 
nambulist. The symptoms of his disorder were ameliorated; the par- 
oxysms diminished in frequency; — his headaches, his oppression disap- 
peared under the influence of magnetism ; — he prescribed for himself a 
treatment appropriate to the nature of his malady, and from which he 
promised his restoration. Magnetized without his knowledge, and from a 
distance, he fell into somnambulism, and was aroused from it with the 
same promptitude, as if he had been magnetized close at hand. Finally, 
he indicated with extraordinary precision, one or two months beforehand, 
the day and the hour of the return of the epileptic attack. Yet notwilk- 
standing he was thus endowed with prevision for attacks at so great a dis' 
tance of time, and even for attacks which would never take place, he did 
not foresee, that in two days he should meet with a fatal accident. 

" Without attempting to reconcile all which at first sight is apparently 
contradictory in such a history, the commission would draw your atten- 
tion to the fact that the previsions of Cazot related only to his attacks ; — 
that thev are reducible to the knowledge of organic modifications in him 



PREVISION OF SOCRATES. 135 

self, which were preparing, and which would arrive as the necessary 
result of the interior functions ; that these previsions, although of greater 
extent, are really precisely similar to those of certain other epileptics, who 
recognize by divers premonitory symptoms, such as headache, giddiness, 
irritability, the aura epilcptica, that they shall soon have an attack. Is it 
then surprising, that these somnambulists, whose sensations, as you have 
seen, are extremely acute, should be able to foresee their attacks a long 
time previously, according to some symptoms, or interior impressions, 
which escape the notice of waking men ? It is in this way, gentlemen, 
that we may understand the prevision attested by Aretreus in two parts 
of his immortal works, — by Sauvages, who also records an example, — and 
by Cabanis. Let us also add, that the prevision of Cazot, was not abso- 
lute, and unalterable, but conditional; since in predicting an attack, he 
announced that it w T ould not take place, if he was magnetized, and that 
in point of fact, it did not take place : — the prevision is icholly organic, 
wholly interior. Thus we easily understand, why he did not foresee an 
event wholly exterior, — that is to say, that accident led him to meet a run- 
away horse, — that he was imprudent enough to try to stop him, and that 
he received a mortal injury. Thus he might foresee an attack which was 
not to happen. It is the hand of a watch, which in a given time, ought 
to pass over a certain portion of its facial circle, and which does not de- 
scribe that portion, because the watch is broken." 

Cases of revealed prevision are quite as common as 
those of organic, and have been known a much longer 
period. Socrates presented a remarkable instance of 
*his kind. He informed his disciples that he possessed 
a genius, who told him future events and directed his 
conduct, and whom he never failed to obey. He often 
warned his friends (by the advice he told them of his 
genius,) against certain courses of action, and, in every 
case where they refused to profit by his counsel, disas- 
trous results followed. 

He predicted all the events of any importance in his 
own life, and lastly, his death and its mode. After sen- 
tence was passed on him, his enemies waited but the 
return of a ship to put it into execution. The night be- 
fore the vessel was expected in, his disciples w r ere 
grieving bitterly to think that before another evening 



130 PREVISION OF CAZOTTE. 

the philosopher would be taken from them ; he informed 
the sorrowful group around him that the ship had been 
injured at sea, and would not return for three days ; and 
the event happened as he predicted. 

Cazotte's famous prediction was verified, even to the 
minutest point, in the history of the French revolution. 
Newnham takes it from La Harpe ; you cannot fail to be 
intensely interested in its perusal — its truth is undoubted. 

" It appears but as yesterday, and yet, nevertheless, it was at the begin- 
ning of the year 1788. We were dining with one of our brethren at the 
Academy — a man of considerable wealth and genius. The company was 
numerous and diversified — courtiers, lawyers, academicians, etc., and, 
according to custom, there had been a magnificent dinner. At dessert, 
the wines of Malvoisin and Constantia added to the gayety of the guests 
that sort of liberty which is sometimes forgetful of bon ton : — we had 
arrived in the world, just at that time when anything was permitted that 
would raise a laugh. Chamfort had read to us some of his impious and 
libertine tales, and even the great ladies had listened without having 
recourse to their fans. From this arose a deluge of jests against religion. 
One quoted a tirade from the Pucelle ; another recalled the philosophic 
lines of Diderot — 

4 Et des boyaux du dernier prdtre, 
Serrez le cou du dernier roi* — 

for the sake of applauding them. A third rose, and, holding his glass in 
his hand, exclaimed : 4 Yes, gentlemen, I am as sure that there is no God 
as I am sure that Homer is a fool;' and, in truth, he was as sure of the 
one as of the other. The conversation became more serious ; much ad- 
miration was expressed on. the revolution which Voltaire had effected, 
and it was agreed that it was his first claim to the reputation he enjoyed. 
He had given the prevailing tone to his age, and had been read in the 
ante-chamber as well as in the drawing-room. One of the guests told us, 
while bursting with laughter, that his hairdresser, while powdering his 
hair, had said to him: l Do you observe, sir, that although I am but a 
poor miserable barber, I have no more religion than any other? 1 We 
concluded that the revolution must soon be consummated ; that it was 
indispensable that superstition and fanaticism should give place to philos- 
ophy, and we began to calculate the probability of the period when this 
should be, and which of the present company should live to see the reign 
of reason. The oldest complained that they could scarcely flatter them- 
selves with the hope; the younger rejoiced that they might entertain 
this very probable expectation ; and they congratulated the Academy 



CA13TTE. 137 

especially for having prepared this great work, and for having been the 
great rallying point, the centre, and the prime mover of the liberty of 
tli ought. 

" Oae only of the guests had not taken part in all the joyousness of this 
conversation, and had even gently and cheerfully checked our splendid 
enthusiasm. This was Cazotte, an amiable and original man, but unhap- 
pily infatuated with the reveries of the illuminati. He spoke, and with 
the most serious tone. ' Gentlemen/ said he, ' be satisfied ; you will all 
see this great and sublime revolution, which you so much desire. You 
know that I am a little inclined to prophesy ; I repeat, you will see it.' 
He was answered by the common rejoinder: * One need not be a conjuror 
to see that.'' l Be it so ; but perhaps one must be a little more than con- 
juror for what remains for me to tell you. Do you know what will be 
the consequence of this revolution — what will be the consequence to all 
of you, and what will be the immediate result — the well-established 
effect — the thoroughly-recognized consequence to all of you who are 
here present?' 'Ah!' said Condorcet, with his insolent and half-sup- 
pressed smile, ' let us hear — a philosopher is not sorry to encounter a 
prophet.' ' You, Monsieur de Condorcet— you will yield up your last 
breath on the floor of a dungeon; you will die from poison, which you 
will have taken, in order to escape from execution — from poison which 
the happiness of that time will oblige you to carry about your person.' 

" At first, astonishment was most marked ; but it was soon recollected 
that the good Cazotte is liable to dreaming, though apparently wide 
awake, and a hearty laugh is the consequence. ' Monsieur Cazotte, the 
relation which you give us is not so agreeable as your Diable Amoureux,' 
(a novel of Cazotte 's.) 

" ' l5ut what diable has put into your head this prison, and this poison, 
and these executioners ? What can all these have in common with phi- 
losophy and the reign of reason ? « This is exactly what I say to you ; it 
is in the name of philosophy — of humanity — of liberty ; it is under the 
reign of reason that it will happen to you thus to end your career; and it 
will indeed be the reign of reason, for then she will have her temples, 
and indeed, at that time, there will be no other temples in France than 
the temples of reason.' < By my truth,' said Chamfort, with a sarcastic 
smile, ' you will not be one of the priests of those temples.' ' I do not 
hope it ; but you, Monsieur de Chamfort, who will be one, and most 
worthy to be so, you will open your veins with twenty-two cuts of a 
razor, and yet you will not die till some months afterward.' They 
looked at each other, and laughed again. ' You, Monsieur Vicq d'Azir, 
you will not open your own veins, but you will cause yourself to be 
bled six times in one day, during a paroxysm of the gout, in order 
to make more sure of your end, and you will die in the night. You, 
Monsieur de Nicolai, you will die upon the scaffold ; you, Monsieur Bailly, 
on the scaffold ; you, Monsieur de Malesherbes, on the scaffold.' ' Ah ! 

12* 



138 CAZOTTE. 

God be thanked/ exclaimed Roacher, ' it seems that Monsieur has no 
eve but for the Academy; of it he has just made a terrible execution, and 

I. thank heaven ' 'You! you also will die upon the scaffold.' 

• Oh. what an admirable guesser,' was uttered on all sides ; ' he has sworn 
to exterminate us all.' ' No, it is not I who have sworn it. 7 ' But shall 
we, then, be conquered by the Turks or the Tartars? Yet again . . .' 
1 Not at all ; I have already told you, you will then be governed only by 
philosophy — only by reason. They who will thus treat you will he all 
philosophers — will always have upon their lips the self-same phrases 
which yon have been putting forth for the last hour — will repeat all your 
maxims — and will quote, as you have done, the verses of Diderot, and 
from La Pucelle.' They then whispered among themselves: * You see 
that he is gone mad ;' for he preserved, all this time, the most serious and 
solemn manner. ' Do you not see that he is joking, and you know that, 
in. the character of his jokes, there is always much of the marvellous.' 
' Yes/ replied Chamfort, ' but his marvellousness is not cheerful ; it sa- 
vors too much of the gibbet; and when will all this happen?' 'Six 
years will not pass over, before all that I have said to you shall be 
accomplished.' 

" ' Here are some astonishing miracles (and, this time, it was I myoelf 
who spoke), but you have not included me in your list.' ' But you 
will be there, as an equally extraordinary miracle ; you will then be a 
Christian.' 

" Vehement exclamations on all sides. ' Ah,' replied Chamfort, ' I am 
comforted; if we shall perish only when La Harpe shall be a Christian, 
we are immortal.' 

"'As for that,' then observed Madame la Duchesse de Giammont, 
1 we women, w T e are happy to be counted for nothing in these revolu- 
tions: when I say for nothing, it is not that we do not always mix our- 
selves up with them a little ; but it is a received maxim that they take 
no notice of us, and of our sex.' ' Your sex, ladies, will not protect you 
this time ; and you had far better meddle with nothing, for you will be 
treated entirely as men, without any difference whatever.' ' But what, 
then, are you really telling us of, Monsieur Cazotte ? You are preaching 
to us the end of the world.' ' I know nothing on this subject ; but what 
I do know is, that you, Madame la Duchesse, will be conducted to tho 
scaffold, you and many other ladies with you, in the cart of the execu- 
tioner, and with your hands tied behind your backs.' ' Ah ! I hope 
that, in that case, I shall at least have a carriage hung in black.' ' No, 
madame; higher ladies than yourself will go, like you, in the common 
car, with their hands tied behind them.' 'Higher ladies! what! the 
princesses of the blood ?' ' Still more exalted personages.' Here a 
sensible emotion pervaded the whole company, and the countenance of 
the host was dark and lovrering ; they began to feel that the joke wag 
hecome too serious. 



JOAN OF ARC. 139 

" Madame de Grammont, in order to dissipate the cloud, took no notice 
of the reply, and contented herself with saying in a careless tone: \ You 
see that he will not leave me even a confessor. 1 ' No, madame, you will 
not have one — neither you, nor any one besides. The last victim to 

whom this favor will be afforded will be ' He stopped for a 

moment. ' Well ! who then will be the happy mortal to whom this 
prerogative will be given V i 'Tis the only one which he will have 
then retained — and that will be the king of France.' 

" The master of the house rose hastily, and every one with him. He 
walked up to M. Cazotte, and addressed him with a tone of deep emo- 
tion: * My dear* Monsieur Cazotte, this mournful joke has lasted long 
enough. You carry it too far — even so far as to derogate from the soci- 
ety in which you are, and from your own character.' Cazotte answered 
not a word, and was preparing to leave, when Madame de Grammont, 
who always sought to dissipate serious thought, and to restore the lost 
gayety of the party, approached him, saying : ' Monsieur the prophet, 
who has foretold us of our good fortune, you have told us nothing of your 
own.' He remained silent for some time, with downcast eyes. • Mad- 
ame, have you ever read the siege of Jerusalem in Josephns?' 'Yes! 
who has not read that ! But answer as if I had never read it.' ' Well 
then, madame, during the siege, a man, for seven days in succession, 
went round the ramparts of the city, in sight of the besiegers and be- 
sieged, crying unceasingly, with an ominous and thundering voice: Wo 
to Jerusalem! — and the seventh time he cried : Wo to Jerusalem. — wo to 
myself! And at that moment an enormous stone projected from one of 
the machines of the besieging army, and struck him and destroyed him.' " 

Joan of Arc's case will appropriately follow that of 
Cazotte ; it is also a matter of history, and may be 
relied on without the slightest hesitation. Like Socrates, 
she openly professed herself under the guidance of a 
familiar genius, whom she called St. Michael. She at 
length fell into the power of the English, by whom she 
was (as might be expected from the ignorance of the 
age), regarded as a witch; they tried her as a heretic 
and sorceress by an ecclesiastical tribunal, and after 
condemnation, burnt her at Rouen. I will take the ac- 
count from Newnham : 

" On the 12th of February, 1428, on which the disastrous battle of 
Rouvray-Saint-Denis was fought, Joan said to M. Robert de Baudricourt, 



140 JOAN OF ARC. 

Governor of Vaucouleurs, that the king had suffered great losses before 
Orleans, and would experience further losses unless she were sent to 
him. The exactitude of this announcement determined Baudricourt to 
send her. 

" The next day, on her departure, many persons asked Joan how she 
could possibly undertake this journey, since the whole country was over- 
run with soldiers ; she answered that she shonld find the way clear. No 
accident happened to her, nor to those who accompanied her, and even 
very few difficulties during the whole journey, which lasted eleven days, 
through an enemy's country, at the close of winter, over a distance of one 
hundred and fifty leagues, and intersected by several deep rivers. 

" On the 27th of February, when she was about to be presented to the 
king, a man on horseback, who saw her passing, employed some blas- 
phemous expressions. Joan heard him, and, turning her head, said, i Ha, 
dost thou blaspheme the name of God, and yet so near to death?' In 
about an hour afterwards, j.his man fell into the water and was drowned. 

" The following month, Joan informed the doctors, who were commis- 
sioned to examine her at Poictiers, — 

" 1. That the English would be beaten ; that they would raise the 
seige of Orleans ; and that this city would be delivered from the said 
English ; 

" 2. That the king would be consecrated at Rheims; 

" 3. That the city of Paris would be restored to its loyalty ; 

" 4. That the Duke of Orleans would return from England. 

" The king, in council, having determined to send Joan to Orleans, 
Jthey commissioned her to conduct a convoy of provisions, of which the 
place stood in the greatest nesd." " It was observed to her, that it would 
be a difficult enterprise, considering its fortifications, and the English be- 
siegers, who were strong and powerful. ' By the help of my God,' an- 
swered she, 'we will put them into Orleans easily, and without any 
attempt to prevent us on the part of the English.' " ' . 

" The generals of Charles VII., not daring to take the route which 
Joan of Arc pointed out to them, the convoy was obliged to halt at some 
leagues from Orleans, from the want of water, and from adverse winds. 
Everybody was confounded and in grief; but Joan announced that the 
wind would soon change, and that the provisions would be easily thrown 
into the town, in spite of the English ; all which was completely verified. 

" The English retained one of the heralds whom Joan had sent to 
summon them to surrender; — they even wished to burn him alive ; — and 
they wrote to the university of Paris to consult upon the subject : Joan 
assured them, that they would do him no harm. 

" When Joan appeared on the redoubt called the boulevard de la 
Belle-Croix, to summon them to raise the siege, these loaded her with 
abuse, especially one of the officers, to whom Joan replied, that ' he spoke 
falsely, and in spite of them all, they would soon depart; but that he 



JOAN OF ARC. 141 

would never see it, and that many of his people would be killed. In fact, 
when the fort of Tournelles was taken this officer wished to make his 
escape by the bridge which separated the fort from the suburbs ; but an 
arch gave way beneath his feet, and he, with all his men, were drowned. 

" Having introduced the convoy of provisions and ammunition into 
Orleans, Joan foretold to the inhabitants, that in five days not an English- 
man would remain before their walls. 

" On the 6th of May, Joan informed her confessor, that on the next 
day she should be wounded above the bosom, while before the fort at the 
end of the bridge. And in fact she received a lance between the neck 
and the shoulder, which passed out nearly half a foot behind the neck. 

" On the morning of the 7th, her host having invited her to partake of 
some fish which had been brought him, she desired him to keep it till 
night, because she would then bring him a stranger who would do his 
part in eating it. She added, that after having taking the Tournelles, she 
would repass the bridge — a promise which seemed impossible to any 
body ; but which nevertheless was fulfilled, like all the other impossibili- 
ties. 

" The irresolution of the king was the greatest punishment to Joan: — 
'I shall only continue for a year, and a very little more,' said she; 'I 
must try to employ that year well.' 

" The Duchesse d'Alenc^n was greatly alarmed, on seeing her husband 
at the head of the army, which was about to enforce the coronation of 
the king, at Rheims. Joan told her to fear nothing — that she would 
bring him back safe and sound, and in a better condition than he was at 
that moment. 

" At the attack of Jargean, the Due d'Alen^on was attentively recon- 
noitering the outworks of the town, when Joan told him to remove from 
the spot on which he was standing, or that he would be killed by seme 
warlike missile. The duke removed, and almost immediately afterwards, 
a gentleman of Anjou, by the name of M. de Lade, was struck in the very 
place which the duke had just left. 

" The English generals, Talbot, Searles, and FalstafF, having arrived, 
with four thousand men, to the relief of the Castle of Beaugenie, in order 
to raise the siege of that place, Joan predicted that the English would 
not defend themselves — wonld be conquered, and that this triumph 
would be almost bloodless on the part of the royal army ; and that there 
would be very few — not quite to say no one — killed of the French com- 
batants. In truth, they lost but one man, and almost all the English 
were killed or taken. 

" Joan had told the king not to fear any want of troops for the expedi- 
tion to Rheims, for that there would be plenty of persons, and many 
would follow him ; in truth, the army increased visibly from day to day 
and numbered twelve thousand men by the end of June, 1429. 

11 When the army had arrived before Troyes, that city shut its gates, 



142 JOAN OF ARC. 

and refused to yield. After five days waiting, and useless efforts of capitu- 
lation, the majority of the council advised to return to Gien; but Joan 
declared that in less than three days she would introduce the king into 
the city, by favor or by force. The chancellor said that they would even 
wait six days, if they could be sure of the truth of her promises. ' Doubt 
nothing/ said she — 'you will be master of the city to-morrow.' Imme- 
diately preparations were made for the projected assault, which so 
alarmed the inhabitants and their garrison, that they capitulated next day, 

" Charles feared that the city of Rheims would oppose a long resist- 
ance to his arms, and that it would be difficult to make himself master 
of it, because he was deficient in artillery. ' Have no doubt,' said Joan, 
1 for the citizens of the town of Rheims will anticipate you. Before you 
are close to the city, the inhabitants will surrender.' On the 16th of July, 
the principal inhabitants of the city laid its keys at the feet of the king. 

" During her captivity, Joan made the following predictions, on the 
first of March, 1430, in the presence of fifty-nine witnesses, whose names 
are given faithfully by M. le Bran de Charmettes: — ' Before seven years 
are past, the English will abandon a larger prize than they have done be- 
fore Orleans, and will lose everything in France. They will experience 
the severest loss they have ever felt in France ; and this will be by a 
great victory which God will bestow upon the French.' 

" Paris was actually retaken by the French, under the command of the 
Marshal de Richemont, and the Count de Dunois, on the 14th of April, 
1436. 

" As to the great victory which should prove so fatal to the English, M. 
le Brnn thinks may be understood either the battle of Tormigny, gained 
by the French in 1450, and which resulted in the conquest of Normandy, 
or the battle of Castillon, fought in 1452, in which the renowned Gen. 
Talbot perished, and which completed the submission of la Guienne to 
France. 

" In order to explain the expression, will lose everything in France, the 
same author recalls the fact, that the people in general restricted the term 
France to what had originally composed the immediate dominion of Hugo 
Capet and his successors, as Flsle de France, 1'Orleannais, le Berri, la 
Touraine, etc. Thus Joan of Arc, born at Domremy, at the extremity of 
la Champagne, said that St. Michael had ordered her to go into France." 

Lady. I have been reading a somewhat similar ac- 
count, belonging, I presume, to the same class, in the 
"Use of the Body in Relation to the Mind," by Moore ; 
he says : 

" There is another form of supersensuous vision, for the existence of 
which we can scarcely discover sufficient reason unless to intimate an 



HEINKICH ZSCHOKKE. 143 

undeveloped faculty, which, in another state, may be proper to man. 
The nature and character of this strange endowment will be best 
expressed in the language of one who believed himself to be possessed 
of it. Heinrich Zschokke, a man remarkable for the extent of his honor- 
able labors as a statesman and an author, solemnly writes the following 
passage in his autobiography : ' It has happened to me sometimes, on 
my first meeting with strangers, as I silently listened to their discourse, 
that their former life, with many trifling circumstances therewith con- 
nected, or frequently some particular scene in that life, has passed quite 
involuntarily, and, as it were, dream-like, yet perfectly distinct, before 
me. During this time I usually feel so entirely absorbed in the contem- 
plation of the stranger's life, that at last I no longer see clearly the face 
of the unknown wherein I undesignedly read, nor distinctly hear the 
voices of the speakers, which before served in some measure as a com- 
mentary on the text of their features. For a long time I held such 
visions as delusions of the fancy, and the more so as they showed me 
even the dress and emotions of the actors, rooms, furniture, and other acces- 
sories.' He was at length astonished to find his dream-pictures inva- 
riably confirmed as realities, and he relates this instance as an example 
of his visionary gift : i One day, in the city of Waldshut, I entered an inn 
(the Vine) in company with two young students. We supped with a 
numerous company at the table d'hote, where the guests were making 
very merry with the peculiarities of the Swiss, with Mesmer's magnet- 
ism, Lavater's physiognomy, etc. One of my companions, whose national 
pride was wounded by their mockery, begged me to make some reply, 
particularly to a handsome young man who sat opposite to us, and who 
had allowed himself extraordinary license. This man's life was at that 
moment presented to my mind. I turned to him, and asked whether he 
would answer me candidly if I related to him some of the most secret 
passages of his life, I knowing as little of him personally as he did of me. 
He promised, if I were correct, to admit it frankly. I then related what 
my vision had shown me, and the whole company were made acquainted 
with the private history of the young merchant — his school years, his 
youthful errors, and, lastly, with a fault committed in reference to the 
strong-box of his principal. I described the uninhabited room w T ith 
w T hitened walls, where, to the right of the brown door, on a table, stood 
a black money-box, etc. A dead silence prevailed during the whole 
narrative, which I alone occasionally interrupted by inquiring whether I 
spoke the truth. The startled young man confirmed every particular, 
and even, what I had scarcely expected, the last mentioned. Touched 
by his candor, I shook hands with him, and said no mere. He is, prob- 
ably, still linng<" 



CONVERSATION IX. 



SOMNAMBULISM. 



Lady. I have been reading Dendy's Philosophy of 
Mystery, and have marked a number of cases which 
seem to bear much resemblance to some of the stages 
of fascination. 

He says that somnambulism is the most perfect para- 
dox among the phenomena of sleep, as it exhibits actions 
without a consciousness of them ; indeed so complete 
is suspension of sensibility that contact, nay, intense 
inflictions, do not produce that mental consciousness 
which is calculated to excite alarm or even attention. 

He says that in London, 1883, a man was brought 
before Alderman Thorp, who had a parcel cut from his 
arm, although he had strapped it tightly on to prevent 
this, as he was often falling asleep during his walk. 
Yet, even then, he usually took the parcels to the proper 
directions. 

The crew of a revenue boat, on the coast of Ireland, 
about two o'clock in the morning, picked up a man 
swimming in the water. He had, it appeared, left his 
house about twelve, and walked two miles over a most 
dangerous path, and had swam about one mile. After 
he was taken into the boat he could not be persuaded 
that he was not still in his warm bed at home. 

In 1834, Marie Pan was admitted into the hospital at 
Bordeaux, France ; her left arm and hand covered with 



NATURAL SLEEPVVAKIVG. 145 

deep and bleeding gashes, its tendons projecting, and the 
bones broken. She had, in her sleep, gone into a loft to 
cut wood with a hedging bill ; thinking she was cutting 
the wood, she had hacked her forearm and hand until 
she fainted away and fell, bathed in her own blood. 
She had felt no pain, but merely a sensation, as if the 
parts were pricked with pins. 

In 1832 some fishermen near Brest, in France, were 
surprised at finding, at two o'clock in the morning, a 
boy about twelve years old, up to his waist in the sea, 
fishing for flounders, of which he drew up five or six. 
Their surprise, however, was increased to wonder 
when, on approaching him, they found he was fast 
asleep. He was taken home and put to bed, but was 
immediately afterward attacked with a raging fever. 

In 18 — , says the Augsburg Gazette, Dresden was the 
scene of a melancholy spectacle. As early as seven in 
the morning a female was seen walking on the roof of 
one of the loftiest houses in this city, apparently occupied 
in preparing some ornaments as a Christmas present. 
The house stood as it were alone, being much higher 
than those adjoining it, and to draw her from her 
perilous situation was impossible. Thousands of spec- 
tators had assembled in the streets. It was discovered 
to be a handsome girl, nineteen years of age, the 
daughter of a master baker, possessing a small independ- 
ence, bequeathed to her by her mother. She continued 
her terrific promenade for hours, at times sitting on the 
parapet and dressing her hair. The police came to the 
spot, and various means of preservation were resorted 
to. In a few minutes the street was thickly strewn 
with straw, and beds were called for from the house, 
but the heartless father, influenced by the girl's step- 
. 13 



146 OPPOSITION 

mother, refused them. Nets were suspended from the 
balcony of the first floor, and the neighbors fastened 
sheets to their windows. AH this time the poor girl 
was walking in perfect unconsciousness, sometimes 
gazing at the sky, and at others singing or talking to 
herself. Some persons succeeded in getting on the 
roof, but dared not approach her for fear of the conse- 
quences if they awoke her. Towards eleven o'clock 
she approached the very verge of the parapet, leaned 
forward and gazed upon the multitude beneath ; every 
one felt that the moment of the catastrophe had arrived. 
She rose up, however, and returned calmly to the 
window by which she had got out. When she saw 
there were lights in the room, she uttered a piercing 
shriek, which was re-echoed by thousands below, and 
fell dead into the street. 

Doctor. You have extracted all that is worth 
noticing in the Philosophy of Mystery ; for a man is 
certainly unfit to treat on physiology who believes, like 
Dendy, that electricity is the source of life, and who, 
driven to confess the fact of the existence of several cases 
of apathetic trance produced by fascination, which he 
quotes, says, "It is, I believe, quite true, that they were 
unconscious of the operation ; but even this is not safe. 
Pain is given us as warning against extreme injury, 
that by our complaint or suffering, the surgeon's mind 
may be on its guard" 

Newnham says that the phenomena of somnambulism 
are established and recognized by the antagonists of 
fascination. And that in fact the knowledge of som- 
nambulism rescues many of these natural phenomena 
from the alleged dominion of sorcery and of the black- 
art, under which they have been classed by the ignorant 



FAIRY STORIES. 147 

and the short-sighted, and restores them to their proper 
position as the natural effects of natural causes. 

Dendy, continually rushing into dilemmas from which 
he cannot extricate himself without overthrowing his 
former positions, remarks, ".That whatever may be the 
influence imparted by tractions, the phenomena of 
excited somnambulism are similar or precisely to those 
spontaneously occurring." "In a word, mesmerism is 
true in part : it may induce catalepsy, somnambulism, 
exalted sensation, apathetic sensibility, suspended circu- 
lation, even death. Clairvoyance and prophecy alone 
are the impositions as regards its effects," etc. 

In both cases the parties remember nothing whatever 
of the recurrences experienced in sleep-waking. The 
actions of many natural sleep-wakers explain the origin 
of many stories of pixey and fairy, who would enter, in 
some cases, the houses of their friends at night, and do 
up all their work for them, and in others cause much 
trouble, to whom they bore ill-will, by breaking their 
crockery, overturning chairs, etc. A tailor in this city, 
who worked for a shop which furnished suits made to 
order at twenty-four hours notice, had taken a coat to 
finish by the next morning, under the expectation of his 
wife assisting him. Arrived at home, his wife was ill, 
and unable to do anything to help him beyond sewing 
the sleeves. He worked steadily at his task during the 
day, but so much did his unusual efforts exhaust him, 
that despite himself he went to bed with a heavy heart, 
for he dreaded, with good reason, the loss of his situation 
from the disappointment of his employers. When 
roused at an early hour the next morning, he hastily pre- 
pared to resume his work, when, to his utter astonish- 
ment, he found the coat perfectly finished, and done too, 



148 PERFORMING DREAMS. 

he confessed, in a much better manner than it was possi 
ble for him to do it. Immediately perceiving that it 
was the deed of his guardian angel, he fell on his knees 
and gave thanks. He told me that it was the only way 
in w T hich the coat could . have been made ; for, on 
account of his exertions the preceding day, he was 
utterly incapable of working, and the next morning could 
do little more than stand. He had evidently risen in the 
night and finished the coat himself, and must have done 
this in complete darkness, for a light would have, in all 
probability, (owing to a peculiar state,) awakened his 
wife, and they had but one room. 

Marcus, the freedman of Pliny, dreamed that a 
barber, sitting on his bed, had shaved him, and awoke 
well trimmed ; Marcus had unconsciously shaved him- 
self. Dendy mentions that early one morning, at a 
farm-house in Sussex, England, an immense number of 
foot-prints were observed by the men about a gate, 
which were not there over night. On their return the 
servant girl was relating her dream ; that she was told 
the cows had got into a wrong field, and that she had 
gone out, opened the gate, and driven them back. She 
had been observed by one of the family performing her 
dream. A young gentleman at Brenstein was seen to 
rise, get out of his window on the roof, and take a 
brood of young magpies from their nest, and wrap them 
in his cloak. He then returned quietly to his bed, and 
in the morning related his dream to his two brothers. 
They had slept with him and witnessed this feat, of 
which he would not be persuaded until they showed him 
the birds in his cloak. 

Dr. Gall relates a case of a Mr. Roggenback, who 
informed him, in the presence of many persons, that he 



NATURAL SLEEP-WAKING. 149 

had been a somnambulist from infancy. In this state 
his tutor had made him read, look for places on the 
map, (and which he found more readily than awake,) 
and perform many other actions, all of which he per- 
formed more readily than in his waking moments. All 
this time bis eyes would be open and fixed ; he did not 
move them in the least, but would turn his head to vary 
their direction. 

A &tory is credited to Professor Upham of Bowdoin 
College, relating to a farmer who rose in his sleep, went 
to his barn, and thrashed out five bushels of rye in the 
dar*k 9 separating the grain from the straw with great 
exactness. Captain Brown, of Portland, Me., while at 
sea, became very ill and confined to his berth. Those 
on board noticed a peculiar stiffness and rigidity of his 
limbs. Though encompassed by timber, and unable to 
go on deck, he saw distinctly all that passed around 
him ; describing many vessels that passed his own, 
together with several at a great distance, at anchor; 
and told all that took place on board of them. His 
descriptions were confirmed in every instance where it 
was possible to make inquiry. 

The letter of Mr. John Wise, of Lancaster, Pa., will 
aptly conclude our cases of natural somnambulism : — 

" From the age of ten to fifteen, it was almost a nightly habit with me 
to get up from my bed and travel through the whole house, unbarriug the 
doors and walking through the different apartments with the greatest ease 
|n utter darkness, sometimes unlocking the back door, and travelling into 
the yard and out-houses, stopping at different places, and examining, ap- 
parently with the nicest precision, such articles as happened to fall in my 
way. 

'* Yet after being awakened, not the slightest recollection remained of 
what had happened. During some of these nocturnal excursions, I open- 
ed a dormar window, and crawled out thence to the very apex of the 
roof? On one of these occasions, after getting on the top of the house, I 

13* 



150 CASE OF JOHN WISE. 

was awakened by a slight shower of rain, and it was with difficulty I 
made a safe descent by way of the next neighbor's house, which obliged 
me to rouse the family in order to get back to my bed again. 

" The most singular feat, however, that I performed in the somnambu 
lie state, was a situation that I got into, out of which I could not extricate 
myself again in a waking state, neither could I, upon trial, without the 
assistance of something to step on first, get into it again. The room in 
which I slept at this time, had in it an old-fashioned cradle of double 
length, made for twin babes. This was placed upon a long narrow keg, 
which stood on its ends, so that when standing alongside of it, the sides 
of the cradle came within two inches of my chin, and it was so poised, 
that a slight preponderance either way would capsize it. During one of 
my nocturnal perambulations in the middle of the night, by some means I 
got into this cradle, without the assistance of anything that would enable 
me to step up, save some strange inexplicable cause. It was a cold win- 
ter night, and I became awakened while in the act of pulling books from 
around me, which were in the cradle at the time. After being perfectly 
awakened, it required a great deal of caution to support my centre of 
gravity, until I had called the assistance of some of the family to enable 
me to get down. 

44 In the somnambulic state, I am told my eyes are wide open, and 
have a glassy appearance. Although I would answer questions, and talk 
freeb" -»n subjects that were indicated by my conduct, yet it was next to 
impossible to awaken me by any other process than the application of cold 
water. After a more advanced age, these symptoms have taken a different 
form, my nightly perambulations being confined to my chamber, and they 
are more particularly connected with the organs of hearing and vision. 
It does appear, that, like the inner vision without the aid of the external 
eye, there is also a distinct faculty of hearing, independent of the external 
ear. This has been experienced by persons of my acquaintance. I have 
frequently hastened to the place from whence sounds appeared to come. 
Generally it appears to be the calling of my name, by persons whose 
voice I can recognize ; but the most frequent delusions are through the 
eye. These symptoms, from their frequency, although not fearful in them- 
selves, have been of late a source of annoyance, and they always occur in 
a half-waking condition. The clearer and smoother the chamber in 
which I sleep, the less am I annoyed with these delusions. Of these 
symptoms and their operations, I have a tolerable distinct recollection 
afterwards. I generally find myself sitting up in bed, in the act of getting 
up and moving towards the objects, which mostly appear to be human 
beings, and often persons of my acquaintance. Although this happens to 
me in a half-waking condition, still, I possess the faculty of reasoning 
within myself upon the necessity of not minding these delusions, but 
seldom become perfectly satisfied until I get up and try to touch the 
object but invariably get awake on being touched by another person. 






DISEASED SLEEP-WAKING. 151 

After being awakened, it has often appeared to me that a conflict had 
been going on between the material and spiritual functions." 

Lady. Is somnambulism ever induced by disease ? 

Doctor. There have been a great number of cases 
recorded by the medical profession, in which illness 
developed the faculty, and when restored to health it 
would be lost. Many of these cases present all the phe- 
nomena of induced prevision, clairvoyance, etc. ; and, 
what will seem a strange fact regarding the matter, 
none ever think of doubting them, not even the most 
bitter opponents of fascination ; yet speak of them in 
connection with fascination, and you will but excite their 
anger. 

We find a case published by two French gentlemen 
of this character. The patient predicted a detail of the 
principal events that should happen to her in the course 
of the following years, — of the maladies to which she 
would be subjected, — of the remedies which would be 
necessary, — of the effect of these remedies, — -of the 
crisis which she would experience, — and of the precise 
period of her cure ; all of which were substantially cor- 
rect and accomplished. 

Lady. Do medicines ever produce symptoms similar 
to these ? 

Doctor. Quite a large number of cases produced by 
medicinal substance, are also recorded ; the cases vary 
from those of intense mental exaltation and development 
of the intellectual powers* to catalepsy and trance. 

Dr. O'Shaughnessy, describing the effects of Indian 
hemp, tells us that in a lad of excellent habits, ten drops 
of the tincture induced the most amusing effects. A 
shout of laughter ushered in the symptoms, and a transi- 
tion state of cataleptic rigidity^ occurred for two or 



152 WITCH CAULDK0N8. 

three minutes. He enacted the part of a rajah giving 
orders to his courtiers ; he could recognize none of his 
fellow-students or acquaintances ; all to his mind seemed 
as altered as his own condition ; he spoke of many 
years having passed since his student days ; described 
his teachers and friends with a piquancy a dramatist 
would envy ; detailed the adventures of an imaginary 
series of years, his travels and his attainments of wealth 
and power ; he entered on discussions of religious, sci- 
entific, and political topics with astonishing eloquence, 
and disclosed an extent of knowledge, reading, and a 
ready apposite wit, which those who knew him best 
were altogether unprepared for. For three hours and 
upwards he maintained the character he at first assumed, 
and with a degree of ease and dignity perfectly becoming 
his high assumption. 

Similar facts were known in ancient times. The 
Thracians used to intoxicate themselves by casting the 
seeds of certain poisonous plants into a fire made for 
the purpose, around which they sat and inspired the 
narcotic fumes. Moore says that there can be no 
doubt that the incantations of witchcraft and magic 
were generally attended with the practice of burning 
herbs of a similar kind. The ancients deemed certain 
temperaments essential to the reception of the divine 
efflatus, and the melancholic was considered the most 
suitable, especially when aggravated by rigid absti- . 
nence and the use of narcotics, (this exactly suits Swe- 
denborg, etc.) Pliny informs us that the soothsayers 
were accustomed to chew roots supposed to be of a 
certain species of henbane. The Hindoos employ the 
Indian heaip for the same purpose; and in St. Domingo 
the suppDsed prophets chew a plant called cohaba, that 



ORACLE OF DELPHOS. 153 

they may be the better able to look into the unseen 
world and perceive the shadows of coming events. 
Sophocles called the priestesses of Delphos laurel eaters, 
because they were in the habit of chewing the leaves 
of that shrub before they mounted the tripod, etc., etc. 

Townshend tells us of a sleep-waker who played 
beautifully on the flute, and was accustomed iO impro- 
vise upon that instrument with all the musical genius 
he possessed ; but the charming strain, once uttered, 
was lost forever. One day, in sleep-waking, being 
asked to write down a composition, he instantly seized 
music paper and a pen, and wrote down the air you 
observe on this paper. I need not mention that he was 
utterly incapable of such a display of talents in the 
waking state. 



154 



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CASE FROM SANDBY. 155 

The following case of diseased somnambulism is 
taken from Mr. Sand by. It is related with singular 
truthfulness and accuracy. 

"It is perfectly true, that our poor friend who has now been some 
months with us, presents one of those singular and almost incredible 
cases of hysterical or nervous affection, which are at distant intervals, 
witnessed under the dispensation of the Almighty, 

"The overthrow of the regular functions of the .lervous system, was 
occasioned by the almost sudden death of her father, to whom she was 
most fondly attached, who was seized with illness, during her absence 
from him, and died in a few hours after she returned to her home. I 
cannot enter into any longer details of the case, which has been attended 
with all those varieties, which have long characterized the complaint, 
among medical men as the Protean disorder. The extraordinary powers 
communicated to the other senses by the temporary suspension of one or 
two of them, are beyond credibility to all those who do not witness it; and 
I really seldom enter into any of the details, because it would be but 
reasonable, that those who have not seen, should doubt the reality of 
them. All colors she can distinguish with the greatest correctness by 
night or by day, whether presented to her on cloth, silk, muslin, wax, or 
even glass — and this I may safely say, as easily on any part of the body 
as with the hands, although, of course, the ordinary routine of such an 
exhibition of power, takes place with the hands, — the other being that 
of mere curiosity. Her delicacy of mind, and high tone of religious 
feeling, are such, that she has the greatest objection to make that which 
she regards in the light of a heavy affliction from God a matter of show 
or curiosity to others, although to ourselves, of course, all these unusual 
extravagances of nervous sensibility, are manifest, for at least twelve out 
of every twenty-four hours. She can not only read with the greatest 
rapidity any writing that is legible to us, music, etc., with the mere 
passing of her fingers over it, whether in a dark or light room, (for her 
sight is for the most part suspended, when under the influence of the 
attack, or paroxysm, although she is perfectly sensible, — nay, more acute 
and clever than in her natural state,J but within this month past, she has 
been able to collect the contents of any printing or MS., by merely laying 
her hand on the page, without tracing the lines or letters ; — and I saw her 
last night only, declare the contents of a note just brought into the room f 
in this way, (when I could not decipher it myself without a candle,) and 
with a rapidity with which I could not have read it by daylight. I have 
Been her develop hand-writing by the application of a note to the back 
of her hand, neck, or foot / and she can do it at any time. There is 
nothing unnatural in this, for of course the nervous susceptibility 
extends all over the surface of tlie body, but use and habit cause us to 



156 cash: from sandby. 

limit its power more to the fingers. Many, even medical men, take upon 
themselves to declare, that we are all (her medical attendants as well) 
under a mere delusion. We ask none to believe anything, if they pre- 
fer not to do so, and only reply — The case is equally marvellous either 
way; — either that this our poor patient should be thus afflicted, or that 
eighteen or nineteen persons of my family and friends, in the daily habit 
of seeing her, should fancy she is for every twelve hours out of the 
tweny-four, doing at intervals, that which she is not doing. There are 
many exhibitions of extravagant powers which she possesses, that we talk 
of to no one ; for finding it difficult to acquire credit for lesser things, we 
do not venture on the greater. Her power ceases the moment the attack 
passes off. A considerable swelling has at times been visible at the back 
of the head, which has yielded to the treatment. 

" It is certainly a case which would be an instructive one, in the con- 
sideration of the physiology of the human frame: but she, poor thing! 
is most averse to experiments being purposely made on her; — but in her 
every day life among us, we have no lack of proof for all we believe and 
know. 

" Between the attacks, she is as perfectly in a natural state, as ever she 
was in her life. There is but one paradox in her state ; and that is, that 
she can at such times, hear some sounds and not others, though very much 
louder, — and see some things, and not others, though placed before her. 
She could hear a tune whistled, when she could not hear a gun fired close 
to her. It is certainly the absorption or absence of mind that occasions 
this; absent to some things, though present to others, like any absent 
man ; and thus Dr. Y accounts for it." 



CONVERSATION X. 



HISTORY OF FASCINATION. 



Doctor. We have now reviewed, with a rapid 
glance, the six stages, curative effects, and natural con* 
ditions, simulating the phenomena of fascination. To 
complete our plan, I have compiled a brief history of 
the matter, which, with your permission, I will read. 

Lady. I am anxious to hear it. It certainly appears 
strange to me that the matter should have been forgot- 
ten through the middle ages, and, until very lately, 
remain unknown. 

Doctor. That it was known and practised is an un- 
doubted' fact, but it was, after the Christian era, confined 
to convents ; and many a miracle at the tombs and other 
depositories of the relics of saints, may safely be referred 
to this agency of fascination. In some instances, the 
Esculapean visions, prescriptions, etc., were repeated. 
St. Gregory, bishop of Tours, tells of the efficacy of 
pilgrimages to the tombs of saints. Says he : " Any 
person filled with faith, coming near the tombs and 
praying, will be speedily cured of whatever illness may 
befall them. Some affirm that the saints appear to 
them in the night (of course while sleeping on or near 
the tomb), during their dreams, and reveal the proper 
remedies." For any number of similar instances, see 
accounts of St. Martin, Protegene, Moses of Lysbia, 
Julianus of Edessa, St. Litard, St. Fortunatus, etc., etc. 

Leger quotes George Fabricius, who, in his Commen- 
14 



158 ROYAL TOUCHING. 

tary on Poets, 1720, p. 73, says that he saw, in Padua, 
country people who were going to the church of St. 
Anthony for the purpose of obtaining salutary visions 
during their sleep. "This," says Fabricius. "exactly 
resembles the ancient pagan worship. And in truth 
even at the present day, the churches of saints are 
resorted to, to receive the same kind of revelations for 
curing disease." 

The king of France, from the time of Clovis, was the 
royal fascinator of his day. Laurent tells us that one 
of the officers of Clovis was afflicted with scrofula ; the 
king felt much concern for him, as the resources of 
medicine had been tried in vain. He dreamed, one 
night, that if he touched the officer's neck, it would be- 
come well ; he arose in the morning and did so ; from 
that time the power remained in his family. 

Marino Cavalli, ambassador from Venice to France 
in 1546, thus describes the operation of touching for the 
scrofula. After giving a description of the reigning 
monarch, Francis, he says: "Like all the monarchs of 
France, he has received from heaven the singular gift 
of curing the evil. Even Spaniards flock hither to 
profit by this miraculous property. The ceremony 
takes place some solemn day, like Easter, or Christmas, 
or the festivals of the Virgin; the king first confesses 
and receives the sacrament, then makes the sign of the 
cross on the sick, saying : ' The king touches, may God 
cure thee !' If the sick were not restored, they would 
not, doubtless, flock hither so far ; and since the num- 
ber augments always, we must believe that God takes 
this method to deliver the infirm, and to increase, at the 
same time, the dignity of the crown of France." The 
power, however, it seems only remained with them 



.'AUEEN OF NAVARRE. 159 

while virtuous ; for the abbot of Nogent tells us that 
Philip the First, who at first possessed the gift when he 
ascended the throne in 1060, lost it by indulgence in 
vice. 

Many other monarchs, determined not to be outdone, 
assumed the same power, not curing scrofula alone, but 
all other diseases; in one instance it was of singular 
benefit to one of the " Lord's anointed." James, the 
exiled king of England, engaged himself as a toucher 
for scrofula in the public hospitals of France. Fascina- 
tion was also useful, in some cases, to the royal opera- 
tors themselves : Tytler, speaking of Charles VI., tells 
us that " he once narrowly escaped being burned to 
death, and in consequence was seized with a dreadful 
fit of frenzy. To relieve him, they sent for a magician 
from Montpellier, and he became somewhat better" 

We are told by Beniveni, a Florentine physician, that 
he had a young man under his care, who was wounded 
in the chest by an arrow, which surgical skill could not 
extract. After a time of great pain, this faculty of pre- 
vision became developed, and he told the day and hour 
when the arrow-head should issue from the wound, and 
the time of his perfect cure ; said he would go to Rome, 
die there, etc., with many other strange particulars, all 
of which, to the astonishment of the narrator, happened 
exactly as he had predicted them. 

In the eighty-fourth page of the Life of the Queen of 
Navarre, it tells, while lying at Metz, at the point of 
death, in consequence of a severe fever, she described 
the battle of Jarnac in every minute particular ; told 
the victory of her son ; his falling to the ground, death 
of the prince of Conde, and flight of the enemy ; and 
the information was confirmed the next night, to the 



160 CHARLES R. HALL. 

astonishment of her attendants, who had thought her 
delirious while giving it. 

Van Helmont tells us, that " there exists in man a 
certain energy which can act beyond his person, accord- 
ing to his will or imagination, and impart virtues, and 
exercise a durable influence, even on distant objects " 

Cardanus at Naples, in 1501, performed extraordinary 
cures by fascination. He declared that nature had 
endowed him with strange faculties. He could go into 
sleep, waking at will, and in that state cure himself of 
an occasional attack of the gout, prescribe remedies, 
see at a distance, and correctly predict future events. 
For all these faculties he was imprisoned, as a sorcerer, 
at Bologna. 

A volume might easily be filled with facts similar to 
the above. But it is unnecessary to recite them all ; 
when once attention is awakened to the subject, enough 
can be found in our every-day reading and observation. 
Suffice it to say, that there is an uninterrupted chain of 
evidence from the earliest times to the present. I shall 
briefly, then, recount a few of the most remarkable, 
which I will mainly extract from Dr. C. R. Hall, a bit- 
ter opponent of fascination, but who, despite himself, 
gives such evidence in its favor — even his own expe- 
rience proving it — that the perusal of his book, " The 
Rise, Progress, Mysteries," etc., etc., will convince any 
person of the reality of the subject he tries to injure^ 
and also of his own silliness in endeavoring to make 
ridicule a test of truth. 

In the seventeenth century there appeared in England 
a gardener, Levret, an Irish gentleman, Valentine Great- 
raks, and a Dr. Streper ; and in Italy, Francisco Bag- 
none, etc., all of whom possessed the power of curing 



LIFE OF MESMER. 1G1 

diseases by touching or striking with the hand. The 
most celebrated of these, Greatraks, is represented by 
the Lord Bishop of Derry, as being a simple, unpre- 
tending man, and sincerely pious. The same authority 
informs us, that not only had he seen, among other 
cures, " dimness cleared and deafness cured by his 
touch, etc., etc. ; running sores of the king's evil dried 
up ; and kernels brought to a suppuration by his hand • 
grievous sores, of many months' date, in a few days 
healed ; obstructions and stoppages removed ;" but 
" even cancerous knots in the breast dissolved." 

Gassner, in 1770, excited much attention in Germany 
and performed several miraculous cures. In 1794, a 
Count Thun appeared at Leipsic, professing to cure 
gout, palsy, and other complaints, by the imposition of 
his hands ; he was of a weak constitution, and his suc- 
cess would vary. 

Mesmer was born in 1734. He was a severe stu- 
dent, and soon became a proficient and able physician. 
It has been truly observed that from time immemorial 
the mineral magnet was employed as a remedy in the 
cure of burns, and other injuries, but it was not until 
the sixteenth century, when alchemy was in its zenith, 
that its use as a remedy for internal diseases became 
general. At this time there was the earliest specula- 
tions on the extensive diffusion of the magnetic principle, 
which, as in our own day, was made to explain the 
motions of the planets and the laws of life. 

Mesmer fell into the universal error, and commenced 
treating the sick by means of magnetized rods, which 
he obtained from Father Hell or Holl, a Jesuit, profes- 
sor of Astronomy at Vienna. His great success aston- 
ished himself, and very much chagrined the professor 



1G2 LIFE OF MESMER 

the consequence of which was an irreconcilable quarrel 
between the two. The acuteness of Mesmer soon led 
him to perceive that he might dispense with the rods, 
and that he could produce the same effects by merely 
drawing his own hands from above downwards in front 
of his patient. 

His success in fascination was wonderful ; for a 
great number of years nothing like it had been seen in 
Europe, and the fame of Mesmer spread rapidly. He 
left Vienna, and travelled through various towns and 
cities in Europe, met with considerable encouragement, 
finally returned, and then left for Paris, w r here we find 
him established in 1778. D'Eslon, one of the court 
physicians, was his first convert ; others soon followed, 
and the majority of the Parisians declared in his favor. 
He finally surmounted the enmity of all his opponents, 
and retired with a large fortune, the result of his bene- 
volent exertions, after founding a school of pupils, 
nearly all of whom became celebrated. The facts in 
his experiments^were allowed by the French Academy 
of Medicine, but the idea of a fluid denied. 

The Marquis de Puseygar, one of Mesmer's pupils, 
having, in March, 1784, fascinated his gardener, found 
that his patient was capable of holding a conversation 
while wrapped in induced somnambulism. He found, 
moreover, that the patient not only understood the 
words, but even the unexpressed thoughts of his mas- 
ter, and would answer with equal clearness the intended 
question while it was yet a mere suggestion of the 
mind, as after it had been conveyed to him in language. 
This was the origin (wrongly so called) of induced 
somnambulism. 

In 1778, Perkins, an American surgeon practising m 



TRACTORS OF PERKINS. 163 

London, invented and obtained a patent for his " metal- 
lic tractors." The tractors were merely smail pieces 
of steel, strongly magnetized, (nothing more than a dif- 
ferent form of the magnetized rod.) They were applied 
over the affected part, and gently moved about, touch- 
ing the skin. Gout, rheumatism, toothache, and palsy, 
were a few of the diseases cured by the tractors, etc. 
Among those who publicly vouched for the truth of the 
wonderful cures performed by means of the tractors, 
were eight university professors, four being professors 
of medicine ; twenty clergymen, ten being D.D.s ; 
thirty-six medical men, nineteen being M. D.s. 

To prove the error of these doctors of divinity and 
medicine, two men in Bath had precisely similar instru- 
ments made of wood, painted and shaped so as exactly 
to resemble the real ones. These were publicly tried 
with all due solemnity, at first upon five hospita. 
patients. Of these four were affected with chronic 
rheumatism in the ancle, knee, wrist, and hips. The 
fifth had chronic gout. All were much relieved. One 
was sure that his knee was warmer, and thought that 
he could walk across the room. He did so, though he 
had previously been unable to stir. The following day 
the real metallic tractors were applied, with results pre- 
cisely similar. Mr. Smith applied the wooden tractors 
to a patient with rheumatism of the shoulder, so severe 
as to prevent his raising his hand ; in four minutes the 
man was able to lift his hand. In another patient the 
fictitious tractors caused so much increase of suffering, 
that he would on no account submit to a repetition of 
the operation. Had these sapient individuals but half 
the talent of Mesmer, they would soon have discovered 
the real source of action. 



164 GENERAL ^EELING. 

Fascination has been known and practised to a 
greater or less extent in the United States since the 
early part of the nineteenth century ; at the present 
time we have scores of lecturers traversing the country. 
The people receive it rather doubtingly ; they want 
some show of reasoning to sustain what they consider 
experiments against the laws of nature. To show the 
feeling I cannot do better than add an editorial from 
one of my exchanges. After describing the scene, 
performers, and examining committee, to the latter of 
which he belonged, he says : — 

" The first evening the lady's eyes were bandaged so that the commit- 
tee were satisfied she could not see. On Thursday night more than 
usual pains were taken. Adhesive plasters were put over her eyes, and 
they did positively adhere so closely to her skin that they were with dif- 
ficulty removed. Over these, soft kid gloves were spread, over these 
again, a handkerchief was tied, secured above and below by tape strings. 

" It was an unusual and very severe test. Pier eyes were, without 
doubt, in total darkness — in regard to that, there is no possible mis- 
take ; but notwithstanding all our precautions in bandaging, she did see. 
She read the names of a score of newspapers, and some of the smaller 
print on them — she read writing with a lead pencil — told the time by 
numerous watches, though set far from the true hour, and described the 
watches. She also read several bank notes. 

" She held the papers, etc., over her forehead, at the lower edge of her 
hair. While engaged in her readings she was very sprightly, and 
evinced considerable smartness — but we have not room for farther 
detail. 

" In regard to this matter, we can only say that we do not comprehend 
it. If it be trickery, it is splendid trickery. The jugglers of the East 
astound you, but they prepare all the machinery — here you are allowed 
to prepare the subject to your own satisfaction. In regard to the pre- 
sumption that arises in the mind, as soon as we are convinced that she 
cannot see with her eyes, that there is some series of cunningly devised 
and secret signs by which communications are made to the young lady, 
we have to say, that watches and papers were given to her that no eye 
saw but our own, and yet she told as usual. 

" Our stubborn skepticism prompts us to say, that though witnessing 
such bewildering tests a thousand times, we would believe we were a 
thousand times deceived, before we would grant that she saw with her 
brain, up through her skull." 



SUPERSTITIONS. 165 

/ 

Lady. I think there is evidence enough on the sub- 
ject of fascination to convince the most incredulous, and 
were the matter of our conversation published, no one 
would rise from its perusal without being a thorough 
believer. 

Doctor. In advancing the various arguments, I have 
merely reviewed the substance of the conclusions that 
have convinced myself. Some curious phenomena 
accidentally observed, led me to examine the matter 
closely, and the result has been, not only an entire con- 
viction of its truth, but an equal conviction that that 
truth may be made so plain as to appeal to the common 
sense of all. 

My knowledge of the subject has given me a ; s lue to 
unravel much of the history of superstition in this 
world. I have found fascination to be a most terrible 
agent of imposture in all ages, as we have before seen 
Jehovah punished its practice among the Jew r s with 
death ; that is, its practice as regarded the production 
of spiritual clairvoyance for purposes of divination : in 
other respects it was extensively known and practised 
as a curative agent. Witness the case of David, etc. 

In our own day, Robert Cochrans, Joseph Smiths, 
Swedenborgs, etc., etc., are in turn gaining hosts of fol- 
lowers, and all through ignorance on this subject. 
Fascination, however, will most assuredly crush them, 
and so well is this fact known, that, perceiving its 
onwaid progress, many of them are even now endeav- 
oring to wrest its phenomena to support their own 
views. Professor Bush says that the "Clairvoyance 
of Swedenborg was not induced by human agency." 
Granted. " That, unlike the magnetic seers, who are 
in a state of internal, but not at the same time of exter~ 



1G3 swedenborg's supporters. 

nal consciousness, Swedenborg was in boih at once. 
His prerogative was the opening of a spiritual sight, 
which left him still in the enjoyment of his natural 
sight. Hence he could know and distinctly describe in 
Ills state of external consciousness, what he saw with 
his spiritual eyes, and could know with perfect accu- 
racy, free from all illusion, what was going on around 
him in the natural world, at the same time that he per- 
ceived what was transpiring in the spiritual world ; and 
so perfectly was he in the possession of external con- 
sciousness while in the exercise of his spiritual per- 
ceptions, that on one occasion, when moving in a 
funeral procession, he was actually engaged in con- 
versation with the spirit of the person whose body he 
was following to the grave." 

If such be the case, and Swedenborg's supernatural 
claims rest on the fact of his seeing and holding com- 
munication with both worlds at once, then must a sin- 
gle well-authenticated fact, like that of the boy who 
possessed a similar power mentioned some pages back, 
overthrow all such claims, or indefinitely extend them ; 
'and this, too, without considering that Swedenborg's 
revelations were a natural sequence to his former philo- 
sophical speculations, and but confirmed them. How- 
ever, as my object in these conversations was more to 
suggest thought than enter into detail, we will now end 
them. 

Lady. Will you be kind enough to give me some 
directions with regard to the best manner of fasci- 
nating ? As you think ladies as well as gentlemen can 
practise it, I would like to be able if ever called upon. 

Doctor. With pleasure ; and I do it the more readily 
because I know your motives in such cases w T ouJd be 



MODE OF OPERATING. 167 

proper ones. It is certainly one of the most remarka- 
ble facts in the whole matter, that the moral feelings 
exercise an extraordinary influence. Philippe the First 
of France has not been the only one who lost the 
power by ill conduct ; for the evil disposed often 
become curbed and shorn of their strength in a sur- 
prising' manner. 

Both patient and operator should be comfortably 
seated, so that neither will experience uneasiness in con- 
sequence of position. The seat of the operator should 
be higher than that of the patient — the apartment 
neither too hot nor too cold, and as few witnesses as 
possible, but one person always present. Never begin 
the process if agitated, but wait until perfectly calm and 
self-collected. When all is ready, seat yourself oppo- 
site the patient, iliclining sidew 7 ays, and taking his hands 
so that the inside of the thumbs of each press against 
the other, the hands resting on a knee of each ; keep 
them in that position a few minutes, until an equal 
warmth is felt, gazing, after the first minute, steadily, 
but not with an effort, into his eyes. Still gazing, 
release his hands, and unite your own with the palms 
touching each other ; then separate them to the right 
and left transversely, (remembering that while commu- 
nicating the influence, the hands, when passing from the 
patient, must always have the back turned to him, and 
the reverse when taking him out of the state,) raise them 
to the head, let them rest on it a few moments, slowly 
carry them down the side and lower part of the head to 
the shoulders ; allow them to rest a few moments there 
also, and then gradually pass down the arms to the end 
of the fingers which should be resting on the knees ; all 
this time only the extremity of your own fingers should 



168 FEEL NO ALARM. 

touch, and that very gently ; at the end of each pass 
slightly shake your fingers, as if to throw something 
from them. You had better continue the passes, as a 
general rule, until the eyes of the patient close. Then 
allow your hands to rest two or three minutes on the 
head, and keeping your fingers in a crooked position, so 
as to directly point to but not touch the parts you 
traverse, pass slowly over the eyes and chest to the 
stomach, where the thumbs had better remain about 
twice as long as they did on the head, the fingers rest- 
ing on the sides ; thence carry them down to the hips, 
knees, and feet. Do this a few times, and then confine 
your passes to the arms and body, without the head. 

The sitting may continue from half an hour to two 
hours ; but forty minutes I have found a good average 
time. Of course, it depends, in a great measure, on the 
impressibility of the patient, and the degree of relief 
given. When it is desirous to terminate it, make two 
or three passes from the knees to the feet ; then several 
transverse passes before the face and chest in a brisk 
manner. 

Make up your mind, beforehand, not to be alarmed at 
any strange and unexpected symptoms that present 
themselves during the operation ; and whatever does 
occur, keep perfectly cool, and betray no agitation of 
manner; if you let any signs of alarm escape you, your 
patient is almost certain to go off into convulsions. 
Mrs. W. came into my house, one day, in extreme pain, 
arising from a wrist that had bee^ twice sprained ; at 
times her agony was dreadful, nd opiates, etc., entirely 
failed to relieve her. A few passes down the arm and 
wrist gave ease, and finally, by continuing the process, 
the pain ceased ; at the end of twenty-four hours it re- 



KEEP PERFECTLY CALM. 100 

turned, and the same results followed the operation 
The third time, I proposed putting her to sleep ; after a 
while her eyes closed ; she made a violent effort to 
open them, and, failing, became much frightened, and 
a cold perspiration broke out over her. I instantly 
reversed the passes ; but it was some time, after awa- 
king, before she became calm. She was afterward 
courageous enough, went to sleep without trouble, and 
became finally cured. 

One of the first cases upon whom I ever operated 
was a Miss L. After a lapse of some ten minutes, she 
declared herself incapable of breathing, and I could not 
discern the pulse at the wrist. Her agitation became 
extreme ; she said death would surely ensue, and wished 
her cousin, who was present, to call her mother. The 
cousin, equally with herself, was frightened ; so much 
so, indeed, that she was incapable of obeying her re- 
quest, though making great efforts to do so, seeming 
like a person with the nightmare. Though dreadfully 
agitated, I continued the passes, directing them alto- 
gether from the knees to the feet, and making some in 
in a transverse direction over the chest. She soon 
breathed and the heart beat ; but, ere both actions were 
regularly established, she was insensible. I have rarely 
seen a person more benefited by the effects of fascination. 

When you can be guided to the seat of pain, keep 
your fingers over the spot, and make the passes in that 
direction. Toothache, headache, sore-throat, rheumat- 
ism, etc., will vanish under such manipulation, often 
with a rapidity that equally astonishes the operator and 
the patient. 

In operating, husband your strength as much as pos- 
sible ; use no more exertion than just enough to give 
15 



170 TRY NO EXPERIMENTS. 

the requisite motion to the hands and arms. You will 
lose enough by imparting the nervous fluid, without un- 
necessarily increasing the debility. This is a common 
fault with young fascinators. 

. If the operator succeeds in giving relief from pain, 
he has produced the only phenomena he ought to ex- 
pect. Do not allow the skepticism of those about you 
to rashly involve you in the mazes of experimenting on 
your patients. Point the unbeliever to the results ; if 
he attributes them to imagination or anything else, 
don't dispute the matter — let him have his own way, 
without your interference. Have patience — bide your 
time — and your turn will come, and, when it does, will 
richly recompense the delay, and satisfy your curiosity. 
So great are the marvels, that our minds must be grad- 
ually prepared to receive them, or we could not bear 
the communication with safety. 

Newnham remarks, that the most important and fun- 
damental characteristic of a good operator is, on his 
part, the possession of sound thought and firm will ; he 
must not employ his processes in a thoughtless or care- 
less manner, or they will be unsuccessful ; but he must 
really throw his mind into the duty — must be attentive 
to what he is about — must wish to do good — not allow- 
ing himself to wander into distant or discrepant scenes, 
but concentrating his will upon the object before him. 
He should be free from impertinent curiosity — a capital 
moral blemish in ordinary life, but still more so in 
magnetic pursuits — because the good of the patient is 
forgotten, the attention of the operator distracted, and 
fixed upon any object rather than his patient's health; 
in such cases, no satisfactory results can be expected. 
Deleuze speaks of a process that may be employed 



SOMa AMBULISM. 171 

with great, advantage in local pains ; this is, to place a 
piece of linen several times folded, or a fragment of 
woollen or cotton cloth upon the suffering part ; apply 
the mouth above it and breathe through it : it excites a 
lively sensation of heat, and the breath, which is 
charged with the nervous fluid, introduces it into the 
system. Then expel the pain by passes. 

Somnambulism (says Deleuze) demonstrates the two- 
fold existence of the external and internal man in a 
single individual. It offers a direct proof of the spiritu- 
ality of the soul, and an answer to all objections made 
against its immortality. It makes evident the truth, 
known to the ancient sages, that man is an intelligence, 
served by organs. Never seek to produce it ; but when 
it comes naturally, profit by it as much as possible. It 
is dangerous to try to produce this state by directing 
passes to the head ; make them equally over the body. 
If nature is disposed to this crisis, the fluid will, of 
itself, be carried to the brain, and the tendency be man- 
ifested by the extreme tranquility of the patient. Then, 
after passing your fingers, five or six times, at a short 
distance before his eyes, ask him whether he sleeps, 
and if he answers in the affirmative, you may ask him 
regarding the treatment. Don't press questions, if he 
shows no disposition to speak : let him alone — it is of 
no consequence ; it is not your object to render him a 
sleep-waker, but to cure him. If such a state were 
necessary, it Would spontaneously develop itself. 

In conclusion, I would remark, that the only 
object of the operator should be to cure his pa- 
tient; this cannot be too strongly insisted upon. 
Try no experiments ; wait patiently, and follow 
the teachings of nature. 



APPENDIX. 



COMMUNICATION FROM REV. MR. BEECHER, ON MAGNETISM. 

"In October, 1842, on my way to the synod of Genesee, I spent the 

Ight at the house of Mr. Hall, at Byron. In the evening I called on 

dev. Mr. Childs. On entering the room, I found his son, an intelligent 

boy aged ten years, then in a cataleptic fit, sitting in his father's arms, 

and his feet in warm water. 

" In a few moments he recovered. He frequently had from three to 
six fits a day — had received the best medical attendance in the region: 
was no better — daily worse. He had lost entirely the power of speech, 
for several days. Great fears were felt that he would never recover 
There was a sore place on the back corner of his head, and on the spine, 
occasioned by a fall, some months previous. When the fits passed off 
he became hungry, and not at all drowsy ; and during the interval ap- 
peared preternaturally bright, and engaged in sports with companions, as 
usual. 

" After I had conversed a few minutes, I said, ' I would have him 
magnetized ;' to which his father replied, ' I don't believe in it at all/ 
and the mother added, ' If you'll put me to sleep, I'll believe, and not 
without.' I replied, ' I would try it : it may do good, and can do no 
harm.' During this conversation, I made a few passes in front of the 
child, chiefly with one hand, and without any particular concentration of 
the mind or will, and mostly with my face toward the mother. In less 
than a minute the father said, ' He is in another fit! No, he isn't, I de- 
clare : I believe he is asleep.' Much surprised, (for I had never mag- 
netized one,) I said, ' It surely cannot be what I have done; but if so I 
can awaken him.' Then, with a few reversed passes, he awoke. ' Well, 
this is strange,' said I; ' but I can put him asleep again, if it is real. 1 I 
then seriously repeated the passes, with both hands, for one or two 
minutes, and placed him in the perfect mesmeric sleep. I then fixed my 
eyes on a lady on the opposite side of the room, the boy not yet having 
spoken for three days, and said, 'Henry, what do you see?' in a full, 
decided voice. He replied, ' Azubah.' I then looked his mother in the 
face, saying, * What do you see?' He gave a name unknown to me: 
I looked to his father, who replied, ' It is her maiden name. 1 I then took 
vinegar into my mouth, and said, ' What do you taste ?' ' Vinegar 1 speak- 
ing with great tartness, and at the same time making many contortions 



LETTER FROM REV. MR. JJEECHER. 173 

of the face. The mother now whispered to one of the children, who 
left her seat, and I said, • Henry, what is she going for?' ' Sugar, and I 
love it,' he answered. She went to the closet, and brought the sugar. I 
put some into my mouth, which seemed to give him the same pleasure as 
if I had put it in his own. I then said, * What kind of sugar is hV 
* Muscovado.' 'What is its color?' 'Well, sir, a kind of light brown/ 
A small glass jar, with a large cork, was now placed in my hand, when 
immediately I observed the olfactory nerves affected, and the muscles 
about the nose contracted at the same moment. I said to the girl, ' What 
is it?' to which the boy answered, ' Hartshorn.' ' How do you know?' 
' I smell it.' I myself neither knew nor smelt. I then took out the cork 
and applied it to my own nose, when he instantly placed his fingers on 
that part of the nose next the forehead, and said, ' I feel it here,' — just 
where I myself experienced the burning sensation. 

" During all these experiments he sat on his father's knee, with his 
head down on his breast, and reclining against his father. 

"I now asked him, 'What is the matter with you?' ' My brain is 
sore.' ' Where'V ' At the bottom of it.' ' Where it joins the spinal 
marrow,' (medulla oblongata? ) 'Yes.' ' What occasioned it ?' ' I fell 
from the great beam in the barn.' His mother here asked him, ' Why 
did you not tell us before ?' 'I feared you would not let me play there.' 

' Can Doct. A cure you V l No. 1 ' Why not ?' ' He don't know 

anything about it,' (very decidedly.) 'Can Doct. C ?' 'No.' 

'Why'?' 'He don't understand it.' 'Will the medicine you now use 
do you good?' 'No' ' Of what is it composed ' 'There is turpentine 
in it.' ' Does the Doctor give it you for tape-worm?' 'Yes.' 'Have 
you any ?' ' No.' ' Would you like to walk V ' Yes.' ' Well, walk.' 
He arose promptly, stepped between the chairs, and said, ' Well, sir, 
where shall I go?' 'From the wall to the door, and back.' This he 
did, avoiding every obstruction; and, at my direction, returned and sat 
again with his father. I now, without notice to any one, placed my fin- 
fier on the organ of Benevolence, thinking at the moment it performed 
the office of Veneration, and said, ' Would you like to pray ?' With some 
lightness, he said ' No.' Some questions were asked, by his mother and 
myself, about the Bible, etc. ; but no Veneration appeared. I then recol- 
lected the true office of the organ, and said, ' Have you anything in your 
pocket V He took out a knife. 'Give it to me for my little boy,' — 
which he did promptly. I removed my hand. ' Have you anything 
else?' 'I have a pencil.' ' Will you give me that for my other boy?' 
'It has no head?' 'Never mind; give it — won't you?' 'I shouldn't 
like to. 'Well, but you will !' 'I couldn't come it!' (with peculiar 
emphasis.) Azubah said, ' Ask him where the head of the pencil is.' 
Where is it, Henry?' ' Well, sir, in the parlor.' 'Where?' 'On the 
window.' Azubah said, ' Why, I picked it up and put it there to-day V 
file certainty did not know this.) I then said, ' Henry, can you get it ? 

15* 



174 ON MAGNETISM. 

He arose, and went into the parlor in the dark, and took the head of the 
pencil-case from the window, to the very great surprise of us all. In- 
deed, we were all so astonished, that it seemed a dream. During these 
and subsequent proceedings, he spoke with a promptness, boldness, 
and propriety, in advance of his years, and beyond himself in his natural 
state ; and so perfectly evident was it that he was in a somnambulic state, 
that no skeptic, I verily believe, could have doubted. 

" At my request he returned to his seat. I touched Benevolence, and 
instantly he handed me the pencil-case. 'For my boy?' ' Yes, sir.' I 
then silently, and without any willing, and with a feeling of curiosity to 
see and test the matter, touched Reverence. His countenance at once 
assumed a softened and solemn aspect. * Henry, would you like to pray V 
' Yes, sir.' ' You may.' He then commenced praying inaudibly. * You 
may pray aloud.' He then prayed in a low, audible voice. On touching 
Tune, he sang a tune, though not in the habit of singing. On touching 
Combativeness and Destructiveness, he raised his clenched fist to strike 
me. He was ignorant of Phrenology, and also of my intention to touch 
any particular organ ; nor did I, in any case, will the activity of the organ. 
I now took out my watch, and holding the dial towards myself, and above 
the line of his vision, his eyes being closed, and his head bowed forward, 
and my hand also being between him and the watch, I asked him, 
' Henry, what time is it?' ' Eight o'clock, sir,' — which was exactly the 
time by the watch, though by the clock in the room it was fifteen minutes 
faster. ' Henry, how long ought you to sleep V ' Well, sir, I must sleep 
two hours and five minutes. 7 ' Will you then awake V 'Yes, sir.' ' Very 
well.' This I did for the purpose of testing his knowledge of time, as 
stated by Townshend, an English clergyman, whose work on this sub- 
ject I had read. 

" I then said, ' Will you go with me to Mr. Hall's V ' Yes.' ' Well, 
now we are there — now we are in the parlor: who is here V ' Mr. and 
Mrs. Hall; Mr. and Mrs. Bard well.' 'Who else?' He did not give 
their names, but intimated that they were strangers. He described the 
room and position of things, all of which I found correct, on going to the 
house shortly after. These persons were not in the habit of being there 
in the evening, but company having come in, they were all together at 
that moment. As this was in his own town, I did not deem it proof., and 
so said, ' Will you go to Batavia ?' ' Yes.* « Well, now we are there — 
now we are at my house — now we will go into my room : what do you 
see V l 1 see a large table covered with black cloth, an£ with books and 
papers scattered over it.' ' How large is it V * It is about five feet long/ 
' How many book-cases?' 'Three, sir.* 'What sort of a stove?' He 
could not or did not describe this, for it wa« so queer a thing as not to be 
easily described. Nor did I press him, for all his answers had been per- 
fectly correct, and I was sufficiently astonished ; for he had never seen 
my study ; and no other minister, I am sure, has such a table, (five feet 



LETTER FROM. REV. MR. BEECHER. 175 

by three and a half,) or has left it in such confusion as mine was at that 
moment. 

" I may here say that, during the whole period of his sleep, he could 
hear the questions of others put to him, and would answer them, if I 
were willing; but if I willed otherwise, or forbade him to speak, as I 
often did, he then would answer no one but myself, not even father or 
mother; nor could he hear their conversation with me, nor with each 
other. 

" I now left him for an hour, and went back to Mr. Hall's, giving him 
leave to converse only with his father. On my return, I found him in 
the same state. He utterly refused to speak to any one but his father, 
and told him that he should not have another fit till the following Sab- 
bath, (this was Monday evening,) which proved true ; but when that day 
came, he had several, 

" At nine o'clock and three minutes, holding my watch as before, and 
standing eight or nine feet from him, I asked the time. He gave ' nine 
o'clock and five minutes.' * Look sharp,' said I. 'Oh! three minutes, 7 
said he. We were now curious to see if he would awake himself at the 
two hours and five minutes, and as he did not awake when the clock in 
the room reached that time, I said, ' Henry, did you mean by my watch, 
or by the clock ?' ' By your watch, sir.' ' Very well.' At the exact 
moment he opened his eyes and looked around, and this without any act 
or willing of mine ; and what was very affecting and convincing, he could 
no longer speak at all, and was unconscious of all that he had said or 
done. 

" I have said that he had no return of fits till the following Sabbath. 
One day after that Sabbath, he came in to his mother, much agitated, and 
apparently going into a fit; and making the passes, he solicited his 
mother to do it, — who, merely to pacify him, passed her fingers over him; 
and soou he fell into the mesmeric sleep, and escaped the fit. After this, 
he was so highly charged by his sister, that when she was in the next 
room, in the closet, he would instantly taste anything she tasted, eat what 
she ate, etc. 

" In ten days I returned, and magnetized him again, and went through 
several of the above experiments. He always, while in the mesmeric 
state, declared that it benefited him, relieved all pain, and would cure 
him. 

" After I left, at my suggestion, he was daily magnetized : his fits left 
him, his voice returned, the sore spots on his head and back were 
removed, and he recovered rapidly, till the family could no longer mes- 
merize him. A man in the village was found, who could and daily did, 
till he appeared entirely well. On omitting it he had a fit or two, and it 
was resumed ; and when I last saw the father, he informed me that they 
considered the child cured. 

" I may add, I have since cured toothache, greatly relieved tic doloreux 



17ft ON MAGNETISM. 

and removed other pains and swellings, as well as headache. I am not, 
however, a full believer in all which is affirmed of clairvoyants — what I 
see and know, I believe. In respect to many well-authenticated facts, I 
neither affirm nor deny. That there are many cases of gross deception 
an3 imposition, I fully believe. On such a subject, it can hardly be 
otherwise. This, however, is a reason why men of character and intelli 
gence should investigate it, rather than otherwise. ' But it is deception.* 
Well, then, let us expose it by a fair trial. ' But it is the work of the 
devil !' How do you know ? What is the evidence 1 What harm has 
it done 1 i Oh, bad men have used it for bad ends !' And what is there 
in the world that has not been so used ? If it is the work of the devil, 
then we are not to be ignorant of his devices, and should make the exami- 
nation for one's self; for ignorant and bad men will not expose his de- 
vices. From experiment and observation, I have ho doubt that, as a 
remedial agent, mesmerism is yet to accomplish much good ; and no 
harm can result from it, except, like all other blessings, it be abused. 

"WILLIAM H. BEECHER. 
" Boston, June 28. 1843." 

[Fowlers and Wells' American Phrenological Journal 









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